


The Olicity Collection

by adiwriting



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-09-13 18:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 27,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9135610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiwriting/pseuds/adiwriting
Summary: A collection of one-shots and drabbles focused on Oliver and Felicity's relationship





	1. Blanket Fort

**Author's Note:**

> So I've been debating posting all of my shorter one-shots and drabbles to AO3, but they always felt too short to stand on their own. I've since seen many people posting their drabbles as a single collection, so I'm going to follow suit. Here you'll find my drabbles, one-shots, and random half-started story ideas that don't quite warrant their own post! Enjoy!
> 
> *sorry in advance for anyone that subscribes to me and is about to get a massive fic dump in their inbox! It should only happen this once!

“What are you doing?” Felicity asks upon entering the loft and seeing the living room in complete disarray.

“We are campin’, Momma!” Grace calls out.

“Camping, huh?” she asks, looking around at the elaborate blanket fort that has been constructed using most of the furniture in the room, more blankets than she realized they even owned, and some creative use of binder clips and fishing wire.

“We are hiding from the monsters,” Oliver informs her, poking his head out from one of the blankets to look at her. “Wanna join.”

“How long did this take you to make?” she asks him.

“Not that long,” he says.

She gives him a doubtful look. It looks like it took him all morning.

“You forget that I lived on an island,” he says.

“Yes, on which you lived in caves and a crashed airplane. Don’t try to tell me you were building tents out of leaves and mud,” she says with an amused look.

“Momma! You hafta come in or the mon-ser will find you!” Grace yells at her, giggling uncontrollably when Oliver grabs her around the middle and pulls her to him to tickle her.

“The monster, huh?” Felicity says.

“These are dire times we live in,” Oliver says in mock seriousness. “Come on in and I’ll keep you safe.”

Felicity gestures down to her ever growing belly and shakes her head.

“If I get all the way down there, I’m not getting back up. I’ll take my chances with the monster,” she says.

“Did you hear that, Grace?” Oliver asks, setting his daughter back down on the floor and giving her a stern look. “Your mom said she can’t come in. I’m gonna have to go get her. Watch my back.”

Grace nods at him seriously and retreats back into the tent, coming back with a toy bow and arrow. “Go get her, Daddy.”

Felicity barely has any time to stop and stare at the sheer adorableness of her daughter standing with her bow and arrow, ready to shoot invisible monsters, the same look of intensity on her face that Oliver always has when he suits up.

Oliver darts out of the fort and beelines for her, jumping over the couch effortlessly.

“Oliver, no!” Felicity shrieks, and immediately tries to move out of his reach, but she’s never been able to outrun him, even before she was 8 months pregnant.

“Mommy, yes!” Grace yells, causing them all to laugh.

He scoops her up easily in his arms and brings her back towards the fort as Grace yells, “They’re right behind you!” Her daughter fires off several bows in a matter of seconds. Her speed is something even Oliver could admire… her aim, not so much. She hits Oliver more often than she ends up hitting any invisible monsters.

“You’re supposed to hit the monsters, not me,” Oliver tells Grace as he settles Felicity on the floor on top of a mound of pillows.

Grace shrugs, “You were in my way.”

Oliver laughs at that.

They’ve made themselves a little home inside the blankets. There are books, stuffed animals, and even a portable mini-projector where Oliver is streaming Aladdin on his phone.

“I hope you have food in here, because I won’t be getting up for several more hours,” she says, glaring at him playfully for dragging her in here.

“As if I’d ever let you starve,” he says, pulling a packed lunch out for her with a smile.

“Were you guys waiting for me to come home this whole time?” Felicity asks.

Grace rolls her eyes in a way that only a 3 year old can. “Who else would we be waiting for?”

Who indeed. She leans over and kisses Grace on top of the head while the girl settles back into her pillows to resume watching her movie.

With Grace distracted, Oliver leans over to give her a proper kiss hello.

“You’re really angling for that World’s Greatest Dad mug aren’t you?” she teases him.

“Well I’d like to eventually have one in every color,” he says with an easy laugh.


	2. Prompt: Favorite Character on TV Show Died...

**Prompt: Favorite character on a TV show died...**

“Oh my god, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?” Oliver says, rushing into the room where Felicity is crying hysterically on the couch. “Is it your back?“ 

She doesn’t answer him as she tries to catch her breath through her tears. 

"Talk to me,” he says desperately, yanking the blanket off of her to look for injuries. His hand goes to her stomach like its second nature. She appears fine, but that doesn’t count for much. He knows from time to time the recently repaired nerves in her spine will go haywire and send crippling waves of pain through her body. 

“He died,” she says, barely understandable through her tears. 

He freezes at her words. 

“Who died?” he asks, mentally going through all of their friends whereabouts and what could have possibly happened. 

“Derek,” she cries. 

Derek? Do they know a Derek? Is she supposed to know a Derek? Whoever it is must be somebody pretty important to warrant such a reaction from her. 

“Why? Who does that? They have a family together,” she says, now that she’s talking, she’s rambling. “They were in love. It’s not fair. Why would they do this?" 

"What happened?” he asks, already mentally out the door and in his way to deal with whoever ‘they’ are for doing whatever it was to this Derrick that apparently means so much to her. 

“He was helping people. He saved all those people and then a car comes out of nowhere and just… Why would they kill him off? It’s not fair,” she says, her head falling into his shoulder. 

A car crash. A man was saving people and then was in a car crash. ‘They’ killed him off. It all sounds vaguely familiar. 

He glances up and sees that she’s been watching Netflix and it’s paused on the credits. 

Derek. As in, Derek Shepard. She’s been watching Grey’s Anatomy again. 

“You’ve seen this episode at least 4 times,” he chuckles. 

Now that he knows nobody is in immediate danger and that nobody real has just died, he can appreciate the ridiculousness of the moment. Leave it to his Felicity to be such a caring and empathetic person that she gets worked up over fictional character’s pain. It’s one of her more endearing characteristics that he’d only learned about once they moved in together. 

“It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it.“ She pulls back to glare at him. "It still hurts. He was the love of her life and he died when all those people he saved got to live. How is that fair? He has a wife! He has kids! What’s Meredith supposed to do now?" 

Ah, suddenly it all clicks into place for him. This isn’t about the show. This is about last night. 

"Hey, hey,” he says, pulling her into him and holding her tight as a fresh wave of tears hits her. “I’m okay. I’m right here. I know that was a close call last night but I’m fine." 

"You were hit by a car trying to save those kids,” she cries. “You could have died." 

"But I didn’t,” he says. “I’m still here. I’m a little bruised up, but I’m good." 

"I know, I’m being ridiculous,” she says. “You do this all the time. I just… It hit me while I was watching that… One day you may not come back. One day you may actually get —” She breaks off into another wave of tears. She can’t even bring herself to say it. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s the hormones." 

"No, it’s not just that,” he says. 

He pulls her back so that he can look into her eyes. He brushes her tears away gently and says, “You’re worried for two now." 

He leans in to give her a comforting kiss that quickly turns into 5. 

"So am I,” he says once they finally pull away again. “When I saw those kids, I couldn’t help but think what would happen if the situation was reversed. If it was our kid in danger. I didn’t think, I just acted. I should have paid more attention. I wouldn’t have been hit by that car if I had." 

"It’s not just you anymore,” she says. 

He smiles at that. It’s not just him anymore. It hasn’t been in a long, long time and he’ll never stop being grateful for that. 

“Ok, so no more Grey’s Anatomy for you,” he says, teasing her by taking the remote out of her hands and turning off the TV. 

“I’ve been put on bed rest thanks to this little guy,” she says pointing at her ever expanding stomach. “If you know what’s good for you Oliver Queen, you’ll give me back my remote." 

"How about we find some other ways to entertain you that don’t involve you crying hysterically over fictional characters and scaring me half to death.”

“What ever did you have in mind?” she says with a knowing smirk. 

She knows exactly what’s on his mind.


	3. More Than a Cinnabon?

(picture originally posted [here](http://adampascalfan.tumblr.com/post/153151361456/id-have-to-ask-where-the-hell-my-cinnabon-was)) 

“Hey Oliver?”   


“Yes?”   


“Where’s the Cinnabon?”   


“What?”   


“Well you kind of got me all excited and now I’m craving a Cinnabon.”   


“Felicity… I’m proposing to you.”   


“I can see that…”   


“…”   


“…”   


“And you’re not going to give me an answer because I didn’t bring you a Cinnabon?”   


“I’m hungry!”   


“Really?”   


“Okay. I mean, of course I’ll marry you. But…”   


“But you still want a Cinnabon.”   


“The guy over there has one and now I can’t get it out of my head.”   


“Fine.”   


-10 minutes later-

“Here you go.”  


“Thank you! I guess now would probably be a good time to give you my gift…”   


“Is this… Is this a pregnancy test?”   


“…”  


“Are you… Are we going to…”   


“Yes.”   


“Oh my god!”  


“I hope you were serious about that proposal… Cause for better or worse you’re going to be getting me a lot of Cinnabons in our future.” 

“Anything. For better or worse, I’m here. I just… I can’t believe I’m going to be a father.”   


“I really do love you, Oliver.”   


“Just not as much as you love Cinnabons?”   


“No… I love you more than a Cinnabon. It's the baby that needs convincing.”   


“Traitor.” 


	4. Aren't They Cute?

"Felicity...” 

“Hmmm?”   


“Look.”   


“What are you — No.”   


“Aren’t they cute?”   


“No, Oliver.”   


“...”   


“You wouldn’t even let me get a dog and you want us to get a kid?”   


“They’re twins, Felicity. I mean look at her. She’s already bossing him around. You know that will totally be our kids.”   


“Are you calling me bossy?”   


“Endearingly so.”   


“There’s not an endearing way to be bossy.”   


“There definitely is.”   


“So let me get this straight. You not only want one kid, but you want twins?”   


“I want whatever you want.”   


“Well what if I don’t want kids?”   


“How can you not want kids? Look at them.”   


“...”   


“...”   


“I guess they are pretty adorable.”   


“They are.”   


“But can we at least get through our honeymoon before you start trying to knock me up?”   


“Does that mean _after_ the honeymoon we can talk about it?”   


“Yeah...” 

“What?”   


“I’m just surprised. I figured you’d have a lot more angst about this.”

“Well I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but I haven’t really been... What did you call me before? Broody!Oliver? I haven’t been him in awhile.”   


“I have noticed that...”   


“Yeah, so...”   


“So what does that mean? That you’re good now?”   


“i don’t know if I’ll ever really be good. I don’t know if there’s a way to ever completely erase everything I went through. But it means I’m ready to talk about starting a family.”   


“Okay.”   


“Okay?”   


“Yeah... After we get home.”   


“Whatever you wish, my love.”   


“Even—”   


“No. We’re still not getting a dog.” 


	5. Road Trip

“Are we really doing this?”   


“Felicity, it was your idea.”   


“In all fairness I was drunk.”   


“Do you not want to go anymore?”   


“No, of course I want to go.”   


“Then what is it?”   


“It’s nothing.”   


“Talk to me, Felicity.”   


“Curtis just made a stupid joke about us retracing bad footsteps and I can’t shake it. It’s stupid. Let’s get the show on the road. I’d like to hit Coast City by nightfall.”   


“It’s not stupid if it’s bothering you. Are you worried if we recreate this trip that we’ll end up repeating the same mistakes as last time?”   


“No. Yes. I don’t know.”   


“Felicity, our road trip wasn’t what broke us up... My lies were...” 

“It wasn’t only you. I made my own mistakes.” 

“Either way, us running away together wasn’t why we didn’t work out. We didn’t work out because we allowed ourselves to stop communicating and trusting in our love once we came back to Star City. We aren’t going to do that this time.”   


“We aren’t?” 

“What’s going on. I thought we already talked about this...”   


“We did. I guess it just helps to have the reminder.”   


“Felicity?” 

“Hmm?”   


“We aren’t going to repeat the same mistakes as last time. We are going to make this work and we are going to be happy together.”  


“Yeah.”   


“I will spend the rest of my life trying to make things up to you.”   


“You don’t have to do that. I forgave you for what happened.” 

“Still, I want to spend my life making you smile. I’ve lived my life with you and without you and learned that I never want to live without you again.”   


“Me neither.”   


“So can we go to Coast City now?”   


“Yeah. I think 3 Arrow-Free weeks away are exactly what the doctor ordered.”   



	6. Alien Serial Killer?

> Thanksgiving Challenge Prompt: “You know who to call.” 

“You know who to call.”   


“Ghostbusters?”   


“...”   


“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”   


“Felicity, there’s an alien serial killer on the loose.”   


“No joking. Got it... I miss Curtis.”   


“He’s been gone for two days.”   


“Yes, and it’s been two days of nobody laughing at my jokes. It’s torture.”   


“I’m sure you’ll survive.”   


“Barely.”   


“Just call Kara and get her here.”   


“I’m working on it. I don’t think you appreciate how difficult inter-universe calling is. The roaming charges alone...”   


“...”   


“Alien serial killer. Got it. I’ll call you when I get in touch with Supergirl. Until then, you should really get to your date. I wouldn’t want her to get eaten alive by some zombie alien while she’s waiting for you to show up and take her to some cheesy movie and crappy drinks.”   


“I was actually going to cook for her.”   


“You were what?!”   


“I was going to cook for her?”   


“You guys are cooing for each other now? As in at your place?”   


“Yeah... is that not okay?”   


“What? No. It’s totally okay. Why wouldn’t it be okay? I mean OF COURSE you would be cooking for her. That’s, like, what couples do right? And you two are a couple. Obviously. So... It’s fine. Totally fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re all fine.”   


“That would have sounded more convincing if you hadn’t said the word fine 5 times.”   


“It’s fin— It’s okay, Oliver. Go on your date.”   


“Felicity?”   


“Yeah?”   


“If you don’t want me to go, all you have to do is tell me.”   


“Why wouldn’t I want you to go?”   


“Because maybe you’ve realized that you’re not as comfortable with the idea of us both moving on as you thought.”   


“...”   


“Felicity...”   


“... I just want you to be happy.”   


“And I want you to be happy, too.”   


“Okay.”   


“Okay?”   


“Yeah. Go on your dinner.”   


“Are you sure there’s nothing you wanted to tell me instead?”   


“Was there something you _wanted_ me to tell you?”   


“I’m not in high school, Felicity. So I’m not going to play this. I want you. You know that I do. All you have to do is say the word and I’m here. But you didn’t want me. You wanted to move on. So that’s what I’m trying to do, too. Because it’s not healthy for either of us for me to sit around and pine after you and mourn the loss of a relationship that is never going to happen again. So if you want me to move on, then let me. But if you don’t, then you need to tell me now so that I don’t continue to lead this woman on...”   


“Oliver?”   


“Yeah?”   


“Idon’twantyoutomoveon.”   


“What was that?”   


“I don’t want you to move on.”   


“Okay. And what do you want?”   


“I don’t know.”   


“Felicity...” 

“No, just... can you just give me this? I don’t know what I want from us yet, but I know that thinking of you cooking for that woman makes me feel sick to my stomach. And thinking about you moving on with anybody makes me feel like I can’t breathe.”   


“Okay. Then I won’t move on.”   


“Do you think that maybe we could talk?”   


“I thought you didn’t know what you wanted?”   


“I don’t. But maybe we could figure that out? Tomorrow? Over drinks?”   


“Yeah... I think I’d like that. But first?”   


“Alien serial killer?”   


“Alien serial killer.” 


	7. Like a Date Date?

> Thanksgiving Challenge Prompt: “you really need to go.”  
> 

“You really need to go.” 

“What if I don’t want to?”   


“I have a meeting at City Hall in an hour and I’m never going to be able to get out of this bed as long as you’re still in it.”   


“You’re not giving me much incentive to leave, Mayor Queen.”   


“…”  


“Was that a growl?”   


“I don’t remember you being this mean last time we dated.” 

“Well last time we dated, I had a job to go to, so I was usually the one having to leave early in the morning…. And is that what we are doing? Dating?”   


“…”   


“I’m not saying no, I just didn’t know what you were expecting here.”   


“We’ve spent the last 3 nights in a row together, I kind of just assumed…”   


“Assumed?”   


“Felicity.”   


“What?”   


“Please don’t make me ask you. You’re the one that broke up with me, so I’m going to need a green light here.” 

“Oliver, me naked in your bed _is_ your green light.”  


“…”  


“…”  


“Felicity, would you like to go out to dinner with me?”   


“Are you asking me out on a date? Like an actual date? Like a date date?”   


“And we’re teasing now, that’s great. Wonderful. I’m going to City Hall now…”   


“Oliver.”   


“Mmm?”   


“I’d love to go out to dinner with you.” 


	8. Quit Staring!

> Thanksgiving Challenge Prompt: “Quit staring! They’ll notice us!   
> 

“Quit staring! They’ll notice us!”   


“Calm down, they aren’t going to notice.”  


“Oliver, they are vigilantes. Noticing stuff is like their bread and butter.”   


“As the person that trains them, I can promise you their noticing skills aren’t that advanced.”   


“If you’re going to undress me with your eyes like that, I’m going to have a very hard time focusing on running that analysis for you.”   


“Then maybe you should have thought about that before telling me that you aren’t wearing any underwear.”   


“Shh! They’ll hear you.”   


“What if I don’t care? I don’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”   


“Really? You want Curtis in here playing 20 questions on when and how we got back together?”   


“Why don’t I go run some drills.”   


“Yeah... Why don’t you go do that.”   


“Felicity?”   


“Yeah?”   


*mouths* I love you. 


	9. Don't Do That!

> Thanksgiving Challenge: “So... When’s the next flight?”

“So... When’s the next flight?” 

“Don’t do that.”   


“Do what?”   


“Look at me all innocent so that I won’t be mad. This is your fault.”   


“Who knew there was going to be traffic at 5 in the morning?”   


“ _I_ did. _I_ knew. That’s why I wanted to leave early, but you were all Oliver... No... Stay in bed... It’s our last day of vacation...”   


“Are you really complaining about the sex we had this morning?”   


“...”   


“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”   


“Thea is going to kill us. They’ll never find our bodies.” 

“Who gets married on Christmas anyways? We should still be on the beach.”   


“I’ll make Roy tell her we missed our flight. She can’t kill her fiance right?”   


“She can’t kill us when we’re halfway across the world.”   


“This is Thea... She’ll find a way.”   


“Yeah... Maybe she won’t notice?”   


“I repeat: This is Thea.”   


“Maybe morning sex wasn’t such a good idea.”   


“As much as it pains me to say this... No. Not one of your more brilliant ideas.”   


“...”   


“Don’t do that. Don’t look at me like that. I’m still blaming you for this one.”   


“Fair enough... At least the orgasm was worth it.” 

“Orgasm _ **s**_.”   


“Don’t do that.”   


“Do what, Felicity?”   


“Look all smug like that.”   


“Why can’t a guy be smug that his girlfriend came three times this morning.” 

“Shh...”  


“Well, I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.”   


“Why’s that?”   


“Thea’s calling.” 


	10. I Like This Game

> Thanksgiving prompt: “Don’t even think about it.”

"Don’t even think about it.” 

“What?”   


“You know what.”   


“Oliver—”   


“No.”   


“But—”   


“First of all, that cast iron skillet is for bacon, not for making cookies. You’ll totally throw off the flavor. Secondly, you’re going to set the kitchen on fire.”   


“But—”   


“Don’t even think about it.”   


“Are you really going to deny me my warm cookie?”   


“I had another kind of desert in mind.”   


“Like pie.”   


“Not exactly...”   


“...”   


“...”   


“Oh. Oh! Well by all means, screw the cookie!”   


“That’s not the only thing I’m hoping you’ll screw.”   


“That was awful.”   


“But you love me for it.”   


“I do... Race you to the bedroom?” 

“Felicity Smoak?”   


“Hmm?”   


“You might want to run.”   


“Why?”   


“So I can catch you.”   


“Mmmm, I like this game.”   


“I know.”   


“5 second head start?”   


“5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Felicity Smoak! You have failed this city!” 

*distant noise from the bedroom*

“I guess you’ll have to punish me then, Green Arrow!” 


	11. Karaoke Bar

“Are you okay?” 

"What? Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" 

“You got sad all of a sudden." 

"..." 

"What is it?" 

"Tommy used to karaoke this song." 

"You're kidding." 

"Nope." 

"I didn't picture either of you doing anything but Top 40." 

"It was his mom's favorite group. He grew up singing the songs with her until..." 

“Until she died." 

"Well, they always reminded him of her."

“And now they remind you of him." 

"Yeah..."

“...”  


“...”  


“We can go walk around outside for a bit. Come back when karaoke night is over." 

"I’m okay." 

"Are you sure? Because you're all mopey now." 

"I'm not sad." 

"..." 

"I'm not. Promise. They are happy memories. I'm just thinking." 

"So long as they are happy thoughts." 

"They are." 

"I wish I had known you both when you were younger." 

"No you don't. You would have hated me... Tommy you would have loved, though. And he'd have loved you."

“Yeah?" 

"Yeah." 

"You don't talk about him that much." 

"I guess I don't really know what to say."

“Did you ever sing with him?” 

“...” 

“Oh my god, you did, didn’t you?” 

“No comment.” 

“You have to sing something now.” 

“No.” 

“Come on! Please?” 

“I was very drunk whenever I would sing with Tommy...” 

“That can be arranged.” 

“Not tonight.”   


“That’s not an outright no...”   


“No, it’s not.”   


“So you’re thinking about it?”   


“He always loved it... It’d be nice to honor those memories... One day. When I’m ready.”   


“Well you let me know when you are, I’ll happily support you. And you’re cheesy song choice.”   


“Beach Boys aren’t so bad you know... Why? What’s your karaoke go to?”   


“...”   


“What?”   


“Miami.”   


“As in, bienvenido a Miami?” 

“I’ll have to know that Will Smith is a perfectly acceptable karaoke go to.”   


“Whatever you say, Felicity.” 


	12. Best Decision Ever

“Are you sure she won’t be mad?”   


“We skipped Thanksgiving. Of course she’s going to be mad. It’s Thea.”   


“You could have still gone, Oliver.”   


“And left you here while you are sick? That’d be poor taste. Besides, I’m enjoying us both having an entire day off together.”   


“Even if I’m sick and we can only cuddle?” 

“Even if we can only cuddle, though I do hate to see you sick.” 

“Do you think they’ll save us some pie?”   


“I’ll make sure they do.”   


“Good. I’d hate to miss the pie.”   


“Do you think your mom decided to be Quentin’s plus one?”   


“I don’t know. She said that she was thinking about it, but that she wasn’t sure if she could trust him or not.”   


“Yeah...”   


“Oliver.”   


“I’m okay.”   


“Oliver. I told her that she should forgive him.”   


“You did?”   


“Well... I forgave you and it was the best decision of my life.”   


“It was?”   


“I’m sitting here, sick as a dog, getting a back rub from my gorgeous boyfriend while he doesn’t even complain once about all the football he’d rather be watching with his bros... So yes. Best decision I ever made.”   


“You’re my best decision, too.” 


	13. Soulmates AU Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic that never got started... This was the prologue to what would have been my Olicity!Soulmates AU, but I dropped this story when I dropped out of the OFBB this past summer. I'll more than likely never write the story, but I'm still fairly fond of the prologue- no matter how many headaches it ended up causing. So... here you guys go... And yes- for those of you that need things to be more explicit- it is Felicity that he's feeling the pull towards ;)

“What are you reading?” Oliver asks as he walks into his room to find Laurel on his bed, reading a magazine instead of one of her thick law textbooks. 

It’s been a long night of fake smiles and shaking strangers’ hands at his parents’ latest charity event, which Laurel refused to go to no matter how much he begged. Apparently studying for the LSAT is more important than rescuing him from another awful high-society event. Thankfully, Tommy had been there to keep him company, along with plenty of booze and a more than willing blonde who’d helped kill a solid 45 minutes with him in the coat room. 

“Nothing,” she says, moving to put the magazine on the nightstand, but he grabs it out of her hands before she can. “Ollie!” 

“The Ugly Truth of Soulmate Bonds: What Disney Doesn’t Teach You,” he reads with an amused laugh. “What are you reading this crap for?” 

Laurel tries to snatch it back, but he holds it above his head so she can’t reach it. He was going to let it go, but with the way she’s blushing, he’s curious. 

“Many have argued for centuries that the soulmate bond was made up by Edward IV to justify his choice to marry for love back in 1464 when he fell for the lower-ranked Elizabeth Woodville—” 

“Ollie, give it back!” Laurel says, standing up on the bed so that she can grab the magazine out of his hand, but he just moves back further out of her reach. 

“Dr. Weisenberg, a psychologist specializing in relationship counselling, has been researching the soulmate bond for over 15 years and claims that no such connection exists. He goes on to explain that belief in such fairy tales is actually the root cause of the high divorce rate that plagues the country. By believing that there is one person out there that fate chooses for us—” 

Laurel manages to get the magazine out of his hands and proceeds to smack him with it. Her glare is anything but playful. 

“Come on,” he says with an easy laugh. “You’re not going to let me read it?” 

“No,” she says, holding the magazine protectively to her chest. “And you’re being a jerk. Were you drinking?” 

“I had one glass of champagne at the toast,” he lies effortlessly. She seems to accept that, but continues to hold the magazine close to her, letting him know that she’s still mad at him. 

“Aw, come on,” Oliver says, poking at her sides playfully, trying to crack her steely exterior. If she keeps this up, he won’t be getting any tonight. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you.” 

Laurel glares at him for a few more seconds, but he just continues to smile at her and eventually she lets her arms drop to her sides. He sees his opening and sits down on the bed and pulls her into his lap, so that her back is pressed up against his chest. He grabs the magazine out of her hands and tosses is behind him on the bed and starts kissing her neck. 

“Come on, tell me what it is so that I can fix it and we can get on with our night,” he says, running a hand up and down her thigh as his other one moves up to start tugging on her shirt. 

“Ray asked Jean to move in with him last night,” she says with a lilt to her voice that he recognizes far too well. She wants something from him, and it’s something she doesn’t think he’s going to agree to. 

“I guess they’ve been together forever,” he says, treading carefully. 

“We’ve been together longer.” 

And there it is. 

He hums his acknowledgement and continues kissing a path up her neck until he reaches the sensitive spot just behind her ear, hoping to distract her away from this conversation. 

“I think it might be nice to have a place of our own,” she says. 

So they are having this conversation. 

He pulls his mouth away from her ear and drops his hands to the bed while putting his forehead against her back. He’s trying to come up with an appropriate response. He’s felt this conversation coming on for the last several weeks, ever since Frankie and Charlotte’s wedding. He’d been hoping to avoid it as long as possible, but it looks like his luck has finally run out. 

“I only bring this up because your mom busted me yesterday…” 

“You don’t want to move in with me,” Oliver reminds her. “You’re waiting for your soulmate.” 

“What if I don’t believe in soulmates,” she says, turning around in his lap to face him. 

He exhales loudly. 

This is what he’d been worried about ever since Laurel had finally agreed to start sleeping with him two years ago. He’d brought her into this world and it’s slowly been killing her spirit. Laurel Lance — the girl who believed in fairy tales and magic — is telling him that soulmates aren’t real. 

“Of course you believe in soulmates,” he says. “You’re a romantic.” 

“Ollie, I could go my whole life and never meet my soulmate,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. “It’s not an exact science. It’s not even fate.” 

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research lately,” she says with a sad smile. “And people chose to sever their bonds all the time. People meet other people and fall in love and then...” She snaps her fingers to demonstrate just how quickly the bond can be severed. 

“So you do believe in soulmates,” he says with a teasing glare. “You’ve just lost faith in yours.”

“It’s more like, I decided to place my faith in you instead,” she says, leaning in to kiss him. “You’re the one that I love. Why do I need to keep looking for something that may never even come to me if I already have somebody I want to spend forever with.” 

The word forever makes him want to fly into a panic. He shifts her off of his lap and moves to stand up and start pacing the floor. 

“I don’t want to be the reason you stopped believing in happily ever after,” he says. 

“What’s the big deal? You don’t even believe in soulmates,” she argues. 

She’s right. He doesn’t. 

Except that, maybe he does.

Oliver was 11 years old when he first experienced it. The sudden pull of emotions that weren’t entirely his own. He was left feeling utterly gutted with no explanation. His life was perfect. He had everything he could ever want — a loving family, great friends, and more money than his family could possibly spend in a lifetime. Still, he grew depressed and he didn’t understand why. 

One day he was an innocent kid without a care in the world, and the next, he could barely breathe from the overwhelming sadness that filled him. 

When Laurel Lance found him crying in an empty classroom instead of in the cafeteria eating lunch with all of their friends; he heard the word for the first time outside of a fairy tale: 

Soulmate. 

Laurel’s the one to brought up the idea of soulmates as an explanation for his utter despair. She told him that it meant he had a soulmate somewhere out there in pain. That by taking on her emotions like he was, Oliver was helping her through an incredibly difficult time in her life. After all, soulmate bonds were only triggered after tragedy. Laurel called him a hero — a knight in shining armor — and Oliver’s not going to lie, the thought of helping another person felt good, even if it didn’t erase the heaviness in his heart. 

He asked her how she knew so much about the topic, and she claimed it was because she too had felt the pull. The sadness that wasn’t entirely her own and that she’d take that pain a hundred times over if it meant that her soulmate didn’t have to carry the burden alone. 

It sounded nice. Comforting, even. The idea that nobody was ever truly alone. 

However, when Oliver asked his mother about it later that night, Moira Queen told him the entire concept was ridiculous. Soulmates weren’t real. It was a fantasy that Hollywood came up with to sell movies and TV shows. If Oliver was feeling unexplainable sadness, it was called adolescence. She set him up with a therapist who started Oliver on anti-depressants. 

Laurel may have been the smartest girl in their class, but she was only 11. Moira Queen had an MBA from Yale and was always telling his dad how to run Queen Consolidated. Really, Oliver didn’t have a single reason not to believe her. If his mom said soulmates weren’t real, then they weren’t. 

Eventually the feeling of suffocating anguish disappeared and Oliver forgot all about the year when he agonized over the concept of destiny and fate. 

Oliver didn’t think about it again for several years. Not until he was 15 and in Tommy’s basement getting high for the first time while their parents were upstairs enjoying yet another swanky dinner party with the rest of Starling City’s elite. 

“Your mom’s wrong,” Tommy told him from his spot cuddled up behind Monica Fisher. 

“About a lot of things, I imagine. What specifically?” Oliver said, grabbing the joint out of Tommy’s hand before laying his head back down on Laurel’s lap. Both girls were passed out, unable to handle the multiple shots they’d done earlier. 

“Soulmates are real,” he said, causing Oliver to laugh and then suddenly start coughing as he accidentally inhaled a little bit too much smoke. 

“What? How much have you had, man?” Oliver teased. “Don’t tell me you can’t handle it.” 

“I’m serious, Ollie,” Tommy said, and Oliver realized that Tommy wasn’t wearing his signature cocky grin. He really was being serious. 

“You believe in soulmates?” Oliver asked, taken aback. 

Nobody they knew believed in such notions, apart from Laurel, but she’d always had her head in the clouds. Laurel Lance — always trying to save the world. Oliver had never had the heart to tell her that she was wrong about soulmates. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for turning such an honest, caring heart into a jaded, bitter one. 

After all, if soulmates were real, Oliver was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be such a constant stream of infidelity between all the couples upstairs. If soulmates were real, then his father would feel some empathy for his mother’s feelings. 

Yeah, his mom thought she hid it well, but Oliver wasn’t as dumb as he looked. 

“I have a soulmate,” Tommy said with a shrug.

“What?” 

Oliver wasn’t even sure where this was all coming from. A few minutes ago they’d been laughing hysterically at the look on Mrs. Kensington's face when she’d walked downstairs and seen the state of them. Why was Tommy suddenly being so emotional? 

“Our parents don’t want us to believe it’s real because they want us to get married for money and status, and couldn’t care less about true love,” Tommy said bitterly. 

“Maybe your dad,” Oliver said. “He’s an asshole.” 

“I’ve seen the way your mom looks at Laurel,” he said. “It’s not just my dad. It’s every one of those jaded elitists upstairs.” 

“Where is this coming from?” Oliver asked, sitting up and giving Tommy his full attention. It’d been a long time since Tommy’s needed a shoulder to cry on, but Oliver could sense that was exactly what he needed right now. 

“My dad didn’t marry for money. My grandfather wanted him to. They tried to arrange a marriage for him like it was the 1800s or something, but he met my mom and they were soulmates. My grandfather couldn’t break up a bond like that,” Tommy explained, a far off look in his eyes. 

“Your parents were soulmates?” Oliver asked in awe, despite the fact that he was still fairly convinced the entire thing wasn’t real. 

Except, Oliver had felt that pull on his heart before. The feeling of somebody else’s emotions making themselves at home in his body. It was hard to deny it. 

“He said it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him,” Tommy said. “But I don’t believe him. You don’t leave your home for 2 years because you’re so grief stricken over the death of your wife if she wasn’t your everything.” 

“Damn,” Oliver said. It was hardly elegant, but then again, he’d never had a way with words. 

“I felt her today,” he said, taking the joint out of Oliver’s hand to take another hit. If they were going to continue to have this conversation, they were going to need to keep up their high. 

“What was it like?” Oliver asked, curious, but not wanting to appear overly so. 

“Painful,” he said. “I think she got hurt. My back’s been bothering me all day and my neck’s all stiff.”

Oliver didn’t mention that Laurel had fallen down the stairs that morning. It was probably unrelated and the last thing he needed was Tommy thinking that his soulmate was Oliver’s girlfriend. 

“You sure that’s not because you went down on Monica for a good 45 minutes earlier?” he teased, trying to change the subject. 

It wasn’t a conversation he was comfortable having. Not when it forced him to remember his own experiences with the soulmate bond. Not when he had to think about a little girl who’d endured almost a year of depression for god knows what reason. 

“Hey, I’ve told you before… If you spend the time on her, she’ll spend the time on you,” Tommy said with a wink. “I bet Laurel may even let you go all the way if you’d just take your time on her.” 

“Nah,” Oliver said, taking the joint out of Tommy’s hand to take another hit. “She says we’re too young. Won’t even let me touch her under her shirt.” 

Laurel blamed it on their age, but Oliver had a feeling her reluctance to go farther had everything to do with the fact that he wasn’t her soulmate. 

“Well I bet little Sara Lance would let you,” he said, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. “She’s hardly a romantic and I’ve seen the way she stares at your ass.”

“Stop, she’s 13,” Oliver said with a glare. Though if he was being honest, he too had seen the way that Sara looked at him and he couldn’t say he’d never noticed the way she filled out her bathing suits. 

“Whatever, she’s hot,” Tommy said with a shrug. 

“And Laurel would kill me,” he said with a pointed look at the girl who was thankfully still passed out on the couch. 

“For somebody who’s not convinced in the idea of soulmates, you’re awfully faithful to Laurel,” Tommy said. 

“Laurel’s not my soulmate,” he said immediately. 

Of that much, he was certain. On the rare nights when he had let himself believe in such things, his mind often went to questions of who and where. Part of him thought it would be easier if it were Laurel. He cared for her. He always had. However, it wasn’t. Any lingering thoughts of maybe had been wiped out last summer when Oliver broke his arm and Laurel barely flinched.

“So you do believe in them,” Tommy said with a smug grin. 

Oliver was about to tell him no. He was about to shrug it off with a joke, but he was feeling oddly safe at the moment. Tommy was his best friend. If he couldn’t talk to him about this, then he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. They may give each other a hard time, but at the end of the day, Oliver knew Tommy would never judge him. 

“My mom’s convinced it’s just teenage angst,” Oliver admitted. “She calls me broody.” 

“Our parents don’t always know everything,” Tommy said bitterly, crawling out from behind Monica so that he could walk over to the bar and grab them both another beer. Apparently, he was done with the joint. 

That was just fine with Oliver. He learned tonight that he really didn’t care for smoking. 

“Try telling them that,” Oliver said, reaching out to take the beer Tommy was offering him. 

“My dad told me that I should ignore her. That she’ll only bring me down,” he said with a humorless laugh, sitting on the edge of the coffee table, rather than returning to cuddle with Monica. 

“And what do you think?” Oliver asked. 

“I think that she was there for me when nobody else was.”

Tommy’s admission had Oliver leaning forward, wanting to comfort his friend. He had no idea that Tommy was in that much pain. Sure, he’d cried the first few nights after his dad left, but after that, he was always laughing and joking around. Oliver hadn’t ever stopped to think about how much of that may have been an act. 

“Was it really that bad?” he asked, surprising himself with the question. They didn’t often talk like this, and Oliver wondered how much of it was only happening because they were both high as a kite. 

“It probably should have been much worse than it was,” Tommy said. “But I could always feel her there. It made me feel like I wasn’t so alone. I don’t know what I would have been like without her.” 

Oliver wondered if that was what his soulmate felt. During those long months where he was buried under her pain, he wondered if she felt like Tommy did. If she could feel him there with her, silently supporting her. If so, it sounded nice. It was like he’d been able to help her, even if he couldn’t be there in person. 

“If she’s anything like me, she appreciates it more than you know,” Tommy said, giving him a knowing look. 

“Who?” Oliver asked. 

“Your soulmate.” 

Was Oliver really that easy to read? He hadn’t thought so, but then again, Tommy had known him his entire life. 

“I just wish I knew why she was so sad,” he said. 

“Maybe her mom died, too,” Tommy said. 

“I hope not.” 

“Yeah. Me, too,” Tommy said.

It was the first and last time they ever talked about soulmates with each other. 

Tommy never mentioned his soulmate again to Oliver, no matter how drunk they might have gotten and Oliver hadn’t felt her pull in years. 

If she’d ever really been there, she was gone now. 

So it’s easy for Oliver to chalk it all up to a silly fantasy. It’s easy to make fun of the concept whenever Thea prances around the house dressed as a princess who is waiting for her soulmate to come. It’s easy to roll his eyes along with his parents when the news reports another over exaggerated story of two soulmates finding one another through tragedy. 

It’s so much easier to believe what everyone tells him. Soulmates aren’t real. There is nobody else out there for him. There’s no one perfect woman out there waiting to find him. Nobody will ever know him better than he knows himself. What he has now with Laurel? It’s as good as it’s going to get. 

“Ollie?” Laurel says, pulling him out of his head and back into the present. 

“You’re right. I don’t believe in soulmates,” he says with a shrug, shaking off the last remaining bit of fear and sitting back down next to Laurel. “Let’s do it.” 

“Yeah?” she asks with that surprised smile he loves so much. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, pulling her in for a kiss. 

“I’ll start looking for a place tomorrow,” she says, laying back on the bed and pulling him down with her. 

“Not an apartment,” he says as she starts to unbutton his dress shirt. “A condo. Someplace classy. Downtown. Far away from your dad.” 

Laurel laughs and for a moment, he thinks that he can make it work. That he can spend the rest of his life listening to that laugh and be happy. 

But that feeling is gone as soon as the sun comes up and all he’s left with is an overwhelming panic. He begins to make plans to get away for awhile while he figures out what he wants to do. 

When his dad mentions a 3 week business trip on the Queen’s Gambit, Oliver sees an opportunity. He crashes the trip and invites Sara Lance along. 

He knows Laurel will find out, so he’s not entirely sure why he does it. Perhaps he thinks it will be easier this way. If Laurel finds out, she’ll break up with him and he won’t have to question whether or not he should be with her. The decision will be made for him. 

Perhaps it’s the guilt. The knowledge that he is the reason that Laurel has given up on finding her soulmate. Maybe with Oliver out of the way, Laurel will find her “one true love.” He wants that for her.

Or maybe it’s something more. Maybe it’s the thing he’s been too scared to admit even to himself. Maybe what really has him running from Laurel — who many of his friends like to inform him is the best thing that’s ever happened to him — is the fact that his heart belongs to a girl he’s not entirely convinced is real.


	14. Okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I came across a collection of Hurt/Comfort Fic Prompts and decided to start my 2017 off strong by writing drabbles for each one, so I'll be slowly posting them as they are completed.

> Prompt: Woah, are you okay?

Oliver doesn’t realize he’s been sitting in the dark until the lights come on and nearly blind him. But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t react. He continues to stare blankly ahead.  
  
Maybe whoever it is will go away and leave him in peace. He’s not in any mood for company.  
  
“Woah, are you okay?” she asks and her voice is full of concern, but he doesn’t deserve it. As much as he wants to curl up in her arms and let her make everything okay again, he doesn’t deserve it.  
  
He remains silent.  
  
“Oliver?” she says, tentatively reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. She’s smart enough to be weary of surprising him. Which only reminds him of the times she’s caught him when his mind is too caught up in a flashback to recognize anyone as anything but an enemy.  
  
Further proof that he isn’t fit to be around others.  
  
“Oliver, talk to me,” she says, but still he remains unmoving. Lost in his own mind.  
  
Her computers ding, signaling that one of her searches have hit on something. Then they ding again, and again. And soon they are going off non-stop.  
  
She looks between him and the computers, unsure if she wants to leave him, but he knows her curiosity will get the best of her.  
  
He knows exactly what she’ll find when she does. It’s the very reason he’s been sitting down here in the dark for the last few hours.  
  
She stands up and walks over to turn her screens on, gasping when they come to life.  
  
“Oh Oliver,” she says. “She didn’t…”  
  
Oliver can only nod, because she most certainly did.  
  
“I don’t understand, why would Susan do this to you? I thought you guys were doing well?” she says, shaking her head in horror as she brings up story after story.  
  
Oliver doesn’t need to see the screen to know what it says. Susan had warned him she was releasing the story. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  
  
“Oliver,” Felicity says sternly, and he looks up, surprised to see she’s standing directly over him. He hadn’t noticed her moving, which is a sign of how far into his head he really is.  
  
“What happened?” she demands.  
  
Oliver shakes his head, but Felicity continues to look at him expectantly.  
  
“We slept together,” he finally whispers after several tense moments.  
  
“And that prompted her to tell everyone you were in the Bratva?” Felicity asks, shaking her head.  
  
“Not exactly,” he says, blushing slightly. He’s still angry at himself for what he did, and he doesn’t think he can bring himself to tell her what he’d done.  
  
“Well what exactly prompted this?”  
  
Oliver stares up at her, praying she’ll understand without him having to actually say the words. It’s not that he wouldn’t tell her, it’s that he’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to hear it.  
  
It takes her several long moments, before understanding dawns on her face she she tentatively raises a finger to herself.  
  
“She got upset over me?” she asks.  
  
Oliver nods as he looks down to the ground unable to meet her eyes.  
  
“I don’t understand,” she says. “Why?”  
  
“I said your name,” he whispers, wondering if he says it quietly enough if she’ll hear him.  
  
Felicity’s gasp says she does.  
  
“I didn’t… but you? Why? I mean… not why, how? No, I don’t want to know how. Don’t need those details. Just…” she stumbles over her words. “I thought you were over it?”  
  
Oliver gives her a disbelieving look. Did she really believe he was over her?  
  
“Oh,” she says, letting out a deep sigh before falling to her knees in front of him.  
  
“Yeah,” he mumbles, looking off into the distance once more, trying to figure out what his next move is. If he even has a next move. This news will destroy him.  
  
He feels her hands in his knees and he looks back at her to see that she’s got a determined look on her face. One he’s seen numerous times before, right before they go into battle.  
  
“We’ll figure it out,” she tells him, leaving no room for debate. No room for doubt.  
  
It takes him another minute before he lets her words sink in fully.  
  
“Yeah,” he says. Because she’s right, as long as she’s still there with him, they can get through anything.  
  
He stands up, feelings his bones protests after sitting on the hard ground for so long, and reaches out a hand to help her to her feet. Once she’s standing, she doesn’t let go. In fact, she entwines their fingers and gives him a reassuring squeeze.  
  
He looks down at their hands, and takes a steadying breath.  
  
Yes. With her at his side, he can get through anything. 


	15. All That Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt/Comfort Fic Prompt: Don't Stand Up Yet
> 
> Warning- this one is a little dark...

Felicity stares between Oliver, lying on the pavement and the massive, Oliver-shaped dent in the hood of the car still not believing what just happened. One minute they’d been walking across the street to their favorite diner and the next thing she knew, Oliver was shoving her out of the way and getting hit by a car. 

Admittedly, she hadn’t been paying much attention, she’d been responding to a text. 

Oh god. She’d been on her phone crossing the street, and Oliver had shoved her out of the way of a car. 

“Somebody call 911,” a pedestrian calls out, and Felicity is frozen in shock as several people surround them, trying to help an unconscious Oliver. 

Tears fill her eyes as her heart refuses to beat. She can’t process what’s happening. This can’t be happening. Oliver Queen faces street thugs with guns, metas with super powers, magic, and aliens on a daily basis and lives to tell the tale. He is not brought down by a car, crossing the street in broad daylight, trying to save her distracted ass. 

It’s not possible. 

He has to be okay. 

Except, he’s not moving. His eyes aren’t opening and she’s genuinely terrified that today is the day Oliver’s nine lives run out. She tries to picture a life without him and she feels sick. Oliver is her world. He’s her everything. Oh god… She’s spent the past year being mad at him for lying to her and refusing to forgive him and for what? It all just seems so incredibly petty now. 

He’d jumped in front of a car for her and now he might be dying and she’d been holding onto a lie he told her nearly a year ago when he’s given her nothing but signs of how he’s changed? How he’s learned his lesson.

He really has grown up so much in the last year and she’s been meaning to tell him how proud she is of him and now she may never get the chance. 

“Please,” she whispers, knowing she needs to go to him. She needs to be at his side, but she can’t bring herself to move. She can’t sit there and watch him leave her. 

Isn’t that what started all of this whole breakup mess to begin with? Her fear of him leaving her like her father did? And now he may actually, literally leave her. She may never hear his voice again. May never feel his lips against hers. May never see him smile at her. May never see him roll his eyes fondly when she makes a terrible pun. May never taste his cooking as he feeds her breakfast in bed. 

And she just has to ask herself, what was it worth? What good did all of that anger do her in the end? Nothing but starve themselves of 11 months of happy stories. 11 months that could have been spent loving each other. 

She tries to hold back the tears. There’s nothing that she hates more than crying with an audience, but she can’t help it. The tears come and once they start, they don’t have any chance of stopping. 

She stumbles backwards as she starts sobbing, a kind stranger catching her around the middle before she falls to the ground. 

Oliver can’t be dead. He can’t. 

She sinks to her knees and covers her face as she cries for the man she’s been in love with for years. The man who’s had all of her attention since the moment he brought her a bullet-ridden laptop. The man who’s had all of her heart from the moment he showed up bleeding and dying in the back seat of her car. 

God. How many times has she watched him nearly die? 

Too many to count. 

This can’t be it. This can’t be how their story ends. 

They still had so many chapters to go. She was going to forgive him soon. She hadn’t decided on when exactly, but she could feel the time coming. She was waiting for the right moment. 

She wanted to do things right this time around. Take things slow and really enjoy each step rather than rushing right to the end. They would spend the first few months getting acquainted with each other. Figuring out how they worked as a couple now. Then after a few months time, she would ask him to move back in with her. Maybe they’d take another whirlwind trip around the world for their one year anniversary. Bali would do them both some good. 

She was going to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him. That is how their story was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to die until they were old and grey. That was the plan, she just hadn’t gotten around to telling him it yet. 

She sobs over all of the time they’ve lost. All of the missed opportunities over the past 11 months to make things better. She sobs until she finds it hard to breathe. 

“Don’t stand up yet,” she hears somebody say through all of the commotion, but she doesn’t pay them any mind. She’s too wrapped up in her own pain and too terrified to look up and face the reality that at any moment, he could take his last breath. 

She should go to him, she knows that she’ll regret it if she doesn’t, but she can’t. She can’t sit at his side and wait for him to leave her for good. 

Arms wrap around her and she’s about to yell that she just wants to be left alone when she smells the familiar scent of leather, sweat, and Tom Ford Noir. 

“Oliver?” she gasps in surprise and relief. She turns around and wraps her arms around him tightly, loosening her grip only when he grunts in pain. 

“I thought I lost you,” she cries into his shoulder. 

“Imagine how I felt watching that car nearly hit you,” he says. “How many times have I told you to be more aware of your surroundings?” 

She pulls back to look him in the eyes, needing to see that he’s alive and well in order to believe it. 

“You’re hurt,” she says, running her fingers down his face that is already swollen and starting to bruise. 

“But you’re okay,” he says with a small smile. “That’s all that matters.” 

And that’s all it takes for her to make up her mind. For her to decide that she’s done with waiting. Taking things slow is for people who have the luxury of time, not women who are in love with men that are prone to danger. 

She grabs him by his shirt and pulls his closer to her until their lips are touching. It doesn’t take him long before his fingers are reaching up to tangle themselves in her ponytail as he draws her closer to him. 

Neither of them move until the paramedics show up. 

Naturally, Oliver refuses to go and puts up a fight, but all it takes is one promise from Felicity that she won’t leave his side, and he relents. 

And that’s how the next chapter of their story starts. Because, in the end, it’s not about finding the right moment, it’s about taking advantage of every moment.


	16. Walk It Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt/Comfort Fic Prompt: Walk it off. 
> 
> A lighter dialogue fic to make up for the last one...

“Walk it off? Are you kidding me right now?” 

“You didn’t fall that hard, you’ll be fine. Just walk it off.” 

“You pushed me out of bed!” 

“I didn’t push—” 

“...” 

“It was an accident. I’m sorry, Felicity. Come back to bed.” 

“Do you honestly think I’m going to continue having sex with you after this?” 

“I thought there was more bed.” 

“You thought there was more bed…” 

“Yes.” 

“Mr. Constantly-Aware-of-His-Surroundings thought there was more bed?” 

“To be fair, you had me very distracted doing that thing with your hand…” 

“I’m going to have a bruise.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“If you’re sorry then why are you laughing.” 

“...”

“Stop. It’s not funny. It hurt.” 

“I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” 

“I’ll survive.” 

“Come back up here. I’ll make it better.” 

“You sleeping on the couch will make it better.” 

“...” 

“Oliver, no! Stop!” 

“I’ll stop when you stop teasing me.” 

“Fine… But you’d better do that thing with your hand that I like.” 

“That can be arranged.”


	17. You'll Have Me. Always.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt/Comfort Fic Prompt: Breathe

“Breathe,” he tells her. Each one of her strangled gasps is another pierce to his heart. He should have been here earlier. He could have prevented this. If only Curtis hadn’t taken so long to get her location… 

“You’re okay, try to breathe with me. Deep breath in, deep breath out,” he says. 

Her hands fly out, trying to push him away but he won’t let her. He cradles her face with his hands and remains in her line of sight, not allowing her to see past him. She doesn’t need to look at the destruction behind them, it will only serve to upset her further. 

“Focus on me,” he instructs her. “Everything is going to be okay. Just breathe.” 

“Oh god, what did I do?” she says, her voice high pitch and terrified. 

“Nothing you can’t come back from,” he says. “Don’t worry about it now.” 

“But Oliver—” 

“It’s okay,” he tells her. 

He doesn’t need to know all of the details to know that it’s bad. Whatever she’s done, it won’t be something she can bounce back from easily. She’d gone to the edge of darkness and jumped in head first without looking back. He hadn’t been able to stop her. 

But he’s here now and he’ll be damned if she goes through any of this alone. 

“You don’t know that,” she says, trying to look away from him in shame, but he won’t let her. “You don’t know what I did.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It doesn’t change anything.” 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers as a stray tear leaked down her cheek. He wipes it away. If only the rest of her pain were as easy to get rid of, but he knows it won’t be so simple. 

“Shhh, let’s get you home,” he says, moving to pick her up. 

As he stands up with her cradled in his arms, he has to close his eyes at the feeling of her nuzzling into his neck. 

“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispers sounding so completely broken and it utterly shatters him. 

“You’re never alone,” he tells her, placing a kiss to the top of her head. “You’ll have me. Always.” 

She hums what he thinks may be agreement before falling asleep in his arms as he slowly makes his way past the rubble of what used to be Prometheus’s lair.


	18. Treadmills and Negotiations

> Prompt Fill: Why are you limping? **  
> **

Oliver glances up from where he’s currently working out on the salmon ladder to see if it’s Felicity or Thea stepping off the elevator. When he sees it’s Felicity, he jumps down and grabs his T-shirt to put on, wanting to get right to work on tracking down the new player in town before he has to get to City Hall. 

“Why are you limping?” he asks her as he steps up to her computer platform, wondering why she’s struggling to make it up the stairs. His thoughts immediately go to her implant, wondering if there’s something wrong. 

“It’s nothing,” she says, but there’s a slight blush in her cheeks that tells him that it is most definately something and she doesn’t want him to know. Which only makes him want to know more. 

“What did you do?” he asks her, causing her to huff in annoyance. 

“I got a hit off of the prints I lifted from the knife you gave me,” she tells him, changing the topic, which makes him amused, because it must have been something really embarrassing if she won’t tell him. 

“Gunner Valdez. Which sounds like his parents were breeding him for gang life. Who names their kid Gunner? That was the name of my neighbor’s dog growing up. I hated that thing. It always chased me down the block when I was on my way to school. Ugh. It was awful—” 

Oliver reaches out to place his hand on her shoulder to help her refocus. 

“Right,” she says. “Anyway. I can’t find a last known address, but I do have his mugshot from SCPD. I’m running facial recognition now. I’ll let you know when I get a hit.” 

“Great,” he says, but makes no move to leave like he usually would to go back to working out. 

“Was there something else you needed?” she asked. 

He nods. “Why are you limping?” he asks with an amused smile. 

She mumbles something about vigilantees needing to mind their own business, but he waits her out, knowing she’ll crack soon. 

[[MORE]]

“I fell off the treadmill,” she tells him. 

“I’m sorry, what?” he asks, knowing he had to have heard her wrong. For starters, he wasn’t even sure that Felicity knew what a treadmill was. 

“I fell off the treadmill,” she grumbles. 

He can’t help but laugh at that, which earns him a smack to the arm. 

“What were you even doing on a treadmill?” he asks. “You hate running.” 

He had tried for months to get her to go running with him, but she never would. She claimed she was allergic to cardio. 

“Paul cleared me for it,” she says. 

“Okay… That still doesn’t explain why you were on a treadmill.” 

“Paul told me last week that I was clear to start exercising again… and I laughed,” she tells him. “Apparently he didn’t find it so funny and gave me a long lecture on how I needed to be more concerned about my body now. Something about needing more core strength for a healthy spine. I wasn’t really listening. Next thing I know, he’s signed me up for the gym.” 

Oliver watches her amused, because he can only imagine how that conversation had gone over. He had tried to talk her into exercising more regularly, informing her that 5 situps each morning doesn’t count as exercise, but it had gotten him little results. 

“So he signed you up for the gym,” he says. “And what made you actually go?” 

“He shows up at my apartment every morning at 5,” she groans. “We’re workout buddies,” she says with fake enthusiasm. 

“You never wanted to be my workout buddy,” he tells her. “When I asked, you told me to shut up.” 

“Well I could get you to stop asking by distracting you with sex,” she says. “I can’t distract Paul with sex. He has zero interest in me even if he weren’t happily married. I tried to distract him with doughnuts, but he’s gluten free and I refuse to buy gluten free doughnuts on principle alone. I tried to get Curtis to distract him with sex, but apparently that wasn’t an appropriate thing to ask your friend. So I had no choice. I had to go to the gym with him.” 

“Where you fell off the treadmill.” Oliver nods at this, crossing his arms while he tries his best not to laugh at her. 

“It was mortifying,” she says. “My phone went flying. My water spilled. I yelped so loud that everyone turned to watch and laugh. And I twisted my ankle.” 

“Maybe you really are allergic to cardio,” he teases her. 

“I told Paul I wasn’t going back,” she says. 

“If it’s a strong core you need, you know you can always work out here,” he says, deciding not to tease her any longer. He will, however, text Paul later to see if there is video of this anywhere. 

“You don’t want me to work out here,” she says. 

“What makes you say that?” he asks, surprised. 

“You hate when I try to work out here,” she says. “You glare at me or look at me like I have a third head.” 

“I do not,” he argues. 

“Really?” she says, giving him a challenging look. “The last time I tried hitting one of those dummies, you asked me what I thought I was doing and told me you needed me to get back to work.” 

He pauses, because she’s right. He doesn’t like it when she trains. The idea of her ever going out in the field terrifies him, especially now that it’s just the two of them around. He doesn’t want her training and getting any crazy ideas that she can suit up. He wouldn't be able to handle it if anything happened to her. He’s already lost the rest of the team, he can’t lose her too. 

However, he knows better than to admit to her that he doesn’t like the idea of her training. He has a meeting to get to in a half an hour and her feminist rant would take at least 45 minutes. 

“You know I’m right,” she says, giving him a smug look. 

“You could work out here,” he tells her, because she could. There is plenty of non-training equipment here to use. 

“Train me,” she tells him. 

“No,” he says quickly. 

“It’s just the two of us right now Oliver, it just makes sense to train me,” she says. 

“It makes zero sense,” he says. “You’re not going out there. I need you here.” 

“I’m not asking to go out there. I just want to know more self-defense. If I were to ever be in danger, I should be able to take care of myself better, seeing as there’s only you to rescue me now.” 

“If you were in trouble, I’d come get you,” he says. 

“You would certainly try.” 

“I would,” he says. 

She continues to stare at him, waiting for his answer to her request to train him and eventually he lets out a deep sigh of regret, because he knows she’s right. 

He really should train her, simply for security reasons. He knows that Digg has taught her the basics, but she could stand to learn some more advanced moves. Besides, if Paul thinks that she needs a stronger core to protect her spine, and this is the only kind of exercise she’ll participate in, he will take what he can get. After all, he wants her to be healthy. 

“Fine,” he agrees, causing her to raise her fist in the air in triumph.

“But you are learning defense moves only.” 

“Okay,” she says with a satisfied smile. 

“And you aren’t getting a suit.”

“I don’t even want one,” she says. 

“You won’t be going into the field with me,” he tells her sternly. 

“Got it.”

Seeing as she’s so agreeable, he decides to slip in one more demand, just to see if he can get her to agree. 

“And you’re going to start running with me in the morning,” he says. 

“No,” she says. “Not happening. Allergic to cardio, remember?” 

“Felicity, a girl that falls off a treadmill doesn’t sound like somebody that could outrun a kidnapper,” he says. 

It’s a valid point, even if his reasons for trying to get her to run with him in the mornings are much more selfish. He just wants to spend more time with her, and a morning run is the perfect opportunity for them to see each other outside of the bunker. After all, if he wants them to get back together, he needs her to remember that he can be more than just the vigilante. It wouldn’t take much to convince her to turn morning runs into morning coffees, and maybe he could even finagle morning breakfasts as well. He’s not above trying to persuade her with his cooking. 

“I can’t run on a twisted ankle,” she says with a smirk. 

“A twisted ankle will heal,” he says. “I can wait.” 

“Are you telling me that you won’t train me if I don’t run with you in the morning?” she asks, giving him her best puppy dog eyes. 

“Well you could always try distracting me with sex,” he teases, unsure how she’s going to take it, but thankfully she rolls her eyes at him playfully and isn’t upset by the comment. 

“How about we compromise with a morning walk,” she says.

“It’s a deal,” he says, managing to avoid pressing his luck by calling it a date. 

Morning walks with Felicity. It sounds like heaven to him. 


	19. Good Samaritan

> Prompt Fill: “That definitely looks broken…” **  
> **

Felicity is stepping out of the casino where she’s just stopped by to get her mother to sign some paperwork for school as it happens. She watches one man punch another and just barely manages to move out of the way as a guy goes tumbling into a wall and hits it hard. She winces as she hears a crack.  


“And that’s for sleeping with my girlfriend, Queen,” one of the guys — the one not currently slouching on the ground — yells. 

He stumbles away, clearly drunk, leaving the other man on the ground. 

God, Felicity hates Vegas. The strip is always full of drunken idiots causing problems. She hates that her mother has to work at a place like this to keep a roof over their head. When she graduates in May, she is going to MIT, getting a good education, then starting her own business. She is determined to make something of herself so that her mother never has to work a day in her life again. 

She hears the man next to her groaning, and very seriously considers leaving him there, but her conscience wins out. 

She kneels down in front of the man to make sure he’s okay. That’s when she first notices how handsome he is. She hadn’t seen it before, because all she’d seen is the douchebag hair. But now that she’s looking at his face, he’s incredibly cute. It’s the eyes… 

He groans again and she looks down at his wrist to see that it doesn’t look right. 

“That definitely looks broken,” she tells him. 

“What? No,” he says, before looking down at his own wrist and grunting. “I’m going to need another shot.” 

“I think you need a hospital, not booze,” she says. 

That’s when he looks up at her and truly sees her for the first time.

“Well hello,” he says, his speech slightly slurred, letting her know that he’d been drinking, even if he’s not completely sloshed yet. “Want to play doctor?” 

[[MORE]]

Felicity rolls her eyes. “I’m 16,” she tells him. 

“No shit,” he says, looking her up and down, appraising her. “Well I won’t tell if you don’t.” 

“Okay,” Felicity says, hating how his lingering stare has her stomach twisting up in knots. She is not going to fall for some drunken frat boy, no matter how charming he is. “Is there somebody I can call for you?” 

“Why would I need to call anybody?” he asks. “I’ve got you.” 

“Is that the line you used on that guy’s girlfriend?” she asks with a smirk. She says it as much to remind herself of what a dick this guy probably is as she does to get him to stop hitting on her. 

“Damn, Beautiful,” he says. “Do you give every guy this hard of a time, or just the ones you like?” 

She rolls her eyes again and tries to debate what to do next. She could leave him here, but he really should get to a hospital and get his wrist looked at, seeing as it’s already started to swell. He mostly likely won’t get there on his own. She could take him to the hospital, but she doesn’t have a car and she doesn’t think taking a man who’s much bigger than her and clearly wants to sleep with her anywhere is the safest plan anyway. 

“You have the most adorable lips,” he says, reaching out to put a finger to her lips with his non-injured hand. She grabs his wrist and puts it back in his lap. 

“I’m not sleeping with you,” she says, unamused, even as her body betrays her by sending a pool of warmth to her belly. The idea of such an attractive man over her is something that she’ll only ever experience in her fantasies, but she’s too practical to ever sleep with a stranger. Especially one as shameless as this guy. 

“We don’t have to sleep,” he says with a smirk. “I bet you’ve never had anyone go down on you before, have you?” 

“Oh my god,” she says, moving out of his reach on the off chance that he tries to reach out and touch her. “You don’t even know my name.” 

“Well what is it, Sweetheart?” 

Felicity will be damned if she gives this guy her name. As attractive as he is, and god is he attractive, he’s not her type. She doesn’t like smug, overconfident prep boys. She’s much more attracted to the silent, broody types. 

“Megan,” she lies quickly. 

“Oliver,” he tells her. “Now that we know each other better…” 

“Ollie!” a voice calls out in the crowd and Felicity prays that this is one of Oliver’s friends who have come to rescue her. 

“Ollie, man,” a man pushes through the crowd until he’s standing in front of them. “What happened? Matt said that Devon punched you.” 

“Devon’s just jealous that I gave his girlfriend more pleasure during 15 minutes in the backseat of a limo than he’s given her during the entire year they’ve been dating,” Oliver says. 

And that is Felicity’s cue to leave. Any lingering doubt about how big of an asshole Oliver is has gone officially out the window. Who hooks up with their friend’s girlfriend? Not anybody she’s interested in knowing. 

“He should get that wrist checked out,” Felicity tells his friend. “If you walk North on Las Vegas Boulevard there’s an Urgent Care around 10 minutes from here.” 

“Tommy, this is Megan,” Oliver says. 

Tommy looks her up and down, before noticing the books in her hand and smirking at her. She glances down to see what’s so amusing and notices that he’s clearly seen her name written across the top. She bites her lip nervously, waiting for him to inform his friend that she’d lied. 

“What’s a high school girl doing out on the strip on a school night?” Tommy asks, smiling down at her. 

And it shouldn’t be legal for two men to be so handsome. They both look like they could be on the cover of GQ if they had better haircuts. But that’s not what has her shifting back and forth on her feet uncomfortably. It’s the sudden fear that she has the attention of two older, significantly stronger men on her. Felicity’s heard enough horror stories growing up to know that she really shouldn’t be interacting with strangers. 

“My mom works inside,” she says quickly, hoping that the mention of her mother will be enough to lose their interest. 

“Isn’t she beautiful? She’s been taking care of me,” Oliver says. 

She looks around, trying to see if there’s anybody around who is sober enough to help her. There’s not.

“Don’t worry, he’s harmless,” Tommy tells her. 

“And you?” she counters, raising her eyebrow at him. 

“I’m a lot stricter about my 18 and up policy than Ollie is,” Tommy says. “Though he is right. You are beautiful.” 

He gives her a wink before turning back to Oliver.

“She’s a little young, Ollie,” Tommy says, reaching down to help Oliver to his feet. “Why don’t we leave the poor girl alone, grab you a few shots to numb the pain, and get you to urgent care?” 

Oliver gives her one last longing look before shrugging and walking into the casino. She expects Tommy to follow, but he doesn’t. 

“Thank you for watching out for him,” he says. “And for not calling the cops when Ollie started hitting on you. Technically speaking, we aren’t supposed to be in Vegas. My dad thinks we took the jet to Seattle to visit Ollie’s grandma. Getting arrested would have blown our cover.” 

Before she can even comment on the stupidity of using a family member as a cover or the fact that they have a private jet, Tommy is handing her something and giving her a wink. 

“Get home safe, Princess,” he says before heading into the casino, calling after Oliver. 

Felicity looks down to see that he’s given her a $1,000 Bellagio chip. 

She stares at it in shock, wondering if it’s real or not, before realizing that anyone with their own private jet doesn’t have to walk around with counterfeit chips. They can afford the real thing. 

Well damn. It really does pay to be a good samaritan.


	20. Physical Therapy

> Prompt fill: Here, let me help you. 

“Here, let me help you,” Felicity says, giving him a shit eating grin as she grabs the jar out of his hand and opens it for him.  


He stares at her, unamused. 

“You’re just loving this aren’t you?” 

“A little bit,” she says, laughing at him. “What else do you need me to do for you? Bring the charcoal in from the car? Carry your bags up the stairs? Get the crock pot from the top shelf?”

She playfully lists off all of the things he gives her endless shit for needing his help to do. He knew that one of these days he would grow to regret giving her a hard time. Felicity doesn’t always get even right away, but she’s like an elephant. She never forgets a damn thing and she always gets hers. 

“Well enjoy it while it lasts,” he says, poking her playfully in the side until she giggles and moves away from him. “Caitlin said the drugs will be out of my system soon and I’ll be back to full strength in a few days.” 

“So I’d better take advantage, huh?” she says. 

[[MORE]]

“See when I imagined you taking advantage of my weakened condition, this wasn’t what I was picturing,” he says, crossing his arms and pouting, hoping it will win him some pity.  

“Why would I play doctor with you when it’s so much more fun to enact my revenge?” she asks, then reaches into her pocket for her phone. “Now smile so I can have blackmail material for later.” 

“Just so we’re clear, the next time there’s a spider in the bathroom, I’m not killing it for you,” he says with a glare. 

She gasps. “You wouldn’t dare. You’d be sleeping on the couch for at least a week.” 

“Instead of punishing me, why don’t you let me make it up to you,” he offers her. 

She looks like she’s seriously tempted but is debating it. 

“The doctor said that you need to take it easy,” she tells him. “The only reason I’m even letting you cook us dinner is because everywhere is closed for the holiday and we’ll starve otherwise.” 

“I’m 100% positive that I have enough energy for sex,” he says, pulling her closer towards him until she’s close enough to kiss. 

“You would say that even if you didn’t,” she says, pulling away from him. He tries to stop her, but he can’t. He grumbles, hating how weak he is right now. 

“That’s because, no matter what kind of condition I’m in, I will always have the energy for sex. So come on, you know that you want to nurse me back to health,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at her playfully. 

Felicity rolls her eyes, walking past him and back into the living room. 

Oliver sighs. He’d asked her this morning if she was still mad at him for taking that hit for Barry, and she’d said no. But maybe she was lying. After all, she’d been livid when it first happened. He’s not sure he’s ever seen her with such rage in her eyes. Despite knowing that it stemmed from genuine fear over losing him, he was still concerned. Ever since their break up, he’s been concerned that anytime she gets mad at him, she’s going to leave again. 

Maybe he should have let Barry get hit instead of him. After all, he had super healing and a super metabolism that would have burned all of the drug out of his system before it could do much harm. That’s what Felicity had said, at least, when he’d first woken up in the hospital. 

Before Oliver can get too far into his head, his head turns at the sound of something hitting the floor beside him. 

Felicity groans. 

Oliver looks over to see her standing on the stairs without her shirt on. He looks to the ground to see that said shirt has been thrown at him. 

“That was supposed to hit you,” she grumbles, causing him to laugh. 

“Your aim is terrible.” 

“Are you really about to tease me when I’m doing a whole sexy stiptease thing for you?” Felicity asks, raising her eyebrow at him. 

He shakes his head as he licks his lips. 

So… not mad at him anymore. 

She slowly undoes her bra before flinging it at him. He catches it effortlessly. 

“Mr. Queen,” Felicity says, using that low voice that always goes straight to his dick. 

“Ms. Smoak,” he says, taking a shuddering breath as he tries to contain just how much she’s turning him on right now. 

“Perhaps some physical therapy will help your rehab go a little faster?” she says, reaching behind herself to lower the zipper of her skirt before it falls to the floor at her feet, leaving her in only her underwear. 

Oliver can only nod stupidly as he nearly trips over himself to get to the stairs. 

Nope. Definitely not mad.  



	21. All In

> Prompt: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Felicity, you need to talk to me,” Oliver says. “You’ve been cranky for the past two weeks and I know you must be mad at me, but I don’t know what I did. We promised each other that we would be better at communicating with each other. So talk to me.”  


Felicity bites her lip and looks around the room like she’s trying to plan her escape route. 

Oliver feels like somebody has just reached into his chest and ripped his heart from his body. So he hadn’t been making it up. She’s planning on leaving him. Again. They’ve only just gotten back together a little more than a month ago and already she’s decided that she can’t do this. 

She opens her mouth to talk, but he shakes his head. He’s changed his mind, if she’s going to leave him, he doesn’t think he can hear her say goodbye another time. 

“Oliver…” Felicity says, her voice full of emotion. 

“I don’t understand,” he says, his eyes welling up. “I thought we were doing okay?” 

“We were,” she says. 

“Then why? Why are you leaving?” he asks. 

At his words, she instantly looks confused. “What?” 

“Why are you leaving me?” he asks again. “What did I do? You have to give me a chance to fix it this time.”

“Oh Oliver,” Felicity says, shaking her head. She walks over to her purse and pulls something out of it. She holds up a plastic stick with what looks like a blue button in the middle. 

Oliver would like to pretend that he doesn’t know what she’s holding. He’d like to claim that he’s never been in a position to see a pregnancy test before, but unfortunately, he has. 

He reaches out for the test and she hands it to him. He looks down to see the word ‘pregnant’ on the small screen. His breath catches in his throat as he’s overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. 

“When?” he asks, unable to form a full sentence. 

“Two weeks ago,” she says. “When I realized I was late.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, feeling hurt that she’s known she’s pregnant for two weeks and hasn’t said a word. 

“I was scared,” she says. “I only just got you back and I couldn’t lose you again.” 

He looks up, hurt that she hadn’t had more faith in him. “You think I would have left you over this?” 

Felicity looks down at the floor and her arms go around her stomach protectively. “I don’t think you would have wanted to…” 

“But?” he asks, feeling his anger start to grow. 

“But you sent William away when you didn’t want to and I didn’t want you to send me and the baby away, too,” she says. 

Oliver rubs his hand over his face in frustration as he clenches the pregnancy test with his other fist. 

He wants to be mad at her, but he can’t blame her for coming to the conclusion that she did. Bringing a baby into their world will probably be the dumbest thing they ever do. It’s not safe. He’d sent William away for a reason. Children don’t have the ability to protect themselves and they certainly aren’t old enough to make their own decisions about what risks are worth taking or not. Their child deserves more than his life under a hood can offer them…

But Oliver has lived his life without Felicity before and he knows himself well enough to know that if he sends her away, he won’t survive it. 

“It would be irresponsible…” he says, closing his eyes as a tear makes its way down her cheek. 

“I know,” she whispers, her voice shaky. 

“I don’t know how to keep a baby safe,” he says. “I don’t even know how to change a diaper.” 

The only baby he’s ever been around was Thea and he was a kid. There were nannies for that kind of thing, but he doesn’t want his child to grow up like they did. He doesn’t want his kid to be raised by caretakers, only seeing their parents at mealtimes. If he’s going to do this, he is going to be the one to do the late night feedings and diaper changes. He doesn’t just want to be around for the easy parts, he wants to be there for all of it. 

“Neither do I,” she agrees. “I’m going to have to learn.” 

Oliver nods his head in agreement. “We are going to have to learn.” 

“We?” she asks, giving him a tentative look, like he’s offering her everything she’s ever wanted but she’s scared to accept it. 

Oliver smiles at her with wet eyes, unsure of how to voice everything he’s feeling. He’s terrified. It’s bad enough having to deal with the very real fear that he could lose Felicity one day, but now that he’s going to be a father? That fear of losing his family has grown exponentially. However, there’s something else growing in his heart that is much warmer and is filling him with a sense of how very right this is. 

It’s hope. Love and hope. 

He hasn’t even met their child yet. He hasn’t known about their child more than a handful of minutes, and already he’s in love. 

Oliver places the pregnancy test in his pocket before dropping to his knees so that he’s eye level with Felicity’s stomach. He then wraps his arms around her. 

“I don’t know how yet, but I promise that I will protect you,” Oliver whispers to his unborn child, and Felicity must hear every word because her arms wrap around his tightly as she starts to cry. 

“I promise that I’m going to do everything I can to be a good dad for you,” Oliver says. 

He lifts up her shirt until her belly is exposed to him so that he can place his lips directly against her skin. She’s not showing yet, but now that Oliver knows she’s pregnant, he does notice her belly seems just the tiniest bit softer than before. 

“I won’t survive losing you, so please,” he begs. “Be safe for your daddy.” 

Felicity's fingers tangle in his hair and hold him against her. She must be scared that he’s going to walk away, but there’s not a force on Earth that would make Oliver leave the spot he’s at right now. 

He doesn’t know how long they both stay like that, holding onto each other tightly like they are afraid the other will disappear at any moment, but it must be a long time, because when Felicity finally pulls him to his feet, his entire body is protesting. She brings him into the living room and pushes him down on the couch until he’s laying down and she can cuddle up next to him, situating herself so that his hand can still rest comfortably against her belly. 

“I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to confirm everything,” she whispers as she runs her fingers up and down his arm. “But I did the math and I’m pretty sure I’ll be due the first week of February.” 

Oliver tries to do the math in his head to figure out when they would have conceived. They are usually so careful about using protection. In fact, the only time he’s not positive that they’d used protection was once when —

“The night in the bunker?” he asks.

She nods her head. 

“If my math is right and it usually is.” 

It had been a long and terrible night for all involved. They’d finally taken down Prometheus, but it hadn’t come easily. Oliver had been physically and emotionally drained and by the end of everything, Digg had narrowly avoided getting an arrow to the heart and Curtis had quit the team. All in all, it was one of their toughest nights on the streets. 

Oliver had sent everyone home to nurse their wounds in the arms of their loved ones with the express command that he wasn’t to see them until at least the following weekend. Felicity had stayed behind with him. She hadn’t wanted him to wallow in self-pity alone. One thing had lead to another and before he knew it, they were several shots of vodka in and were going at it on top of her desk. 

The next day, when they’d woken up in each other’s arms, they’d talked things out and agreed to try again. That had been a little over a month ago. 

Not for the first time, Oliver feels like an asshole for that night. Despite vividly remembering her removing her shirt so they could compare war wounds, he had no memory past the sixth shot and their first kiss. Of all the times they’ve lovingly, soberly, safely made love, their first night back together had been none of that. And now he’s gotten her pregnant when they’ve never even talked about having kids before.

“Hey, no,” Felicity says, always able to read him so well, even when he doesn’t say a word. She shifts around until she’s facing him and can put both of her hands on either side of his face. “This baby was conceived in love, it doesn’t matter if we were drunk or not.” 

“I don’t even remember having sex with you,” he says, shaking his head. 

“We don’t have to remember it to know it was filled with love,” Felicity says. “We didn’t sleep together because we were drunk and not thinking. We slept together because we were drunk enough to finally let our guards down and have an honest conversation about what we wanted. And I want this, Oliver.” 

“The conversation didn’t come til the morning after,” he reminds her. 

“I still don’t regret it, and I hope you don’t either,” she says. “And even though we haven’t met this little guy yet, I’m pretty sure hell will freeze over before I ever regret getting pregnant.” 

Felicity rubs her stomach and Oliver reaches out to place his hand over hers. She’s right. The longer the fact that he’s going to be a dad sinks in, the more in love with the idea he is. 

“You think it’s going to be a boy?” Oliver asks, trying to picture a little boy with blonde hair and glasses running around. 

He imagines teaching his son to play basketball on one of those Fisher Price hoops. He can already see the three of them at the park kicking a ball around as Oliver has to teach both his son and Felicity the basics of soccer. He can coach little league baseball, just like Oliver always wished his dad had done for him. 

His stomach clenches with such intense want. It’s everything he’s ever dreamed of for them. 

Felicity shrugs. “I don’t know. It feels like a he. Why? Do you want a girl?” 

Oliver tries to picture a little girl. She’d have Felicity’s natural curls and Thea’s large puppy dog eyes. He’s already experienced what a little girl would be like with his sister. He’d be pulled into tea parties everyday. He’d let her paint his nails as he watched the Rockets game on TV. He’d leave the sparkly blue on for work, no matter how much ribbing it earned him from the guys, because she’d cry if he tried to take it off. There would be princess dresses out in public, Disney songs in the car, and ballet recitals. 

Imagining a little girl with wild hair passed out on his chest after a long day at the beach? He wants that, too. 

He wants it all.

“I don’t care what it is, so long as they are happy and healthy,” he says, because it’s true. He’s going to love any child they have with everything in him because there’s no way a kid that’s half Felicity will be anything short of amazing. 

“Do you think we’re going to be okay?” Felicity asks. “I mean, we only just got back together. It hasn’t even been a month and now, instead of figuring out how we work together as a two, we will be figuring out how we work together as a three.” 

Her voice is light, as if she’s just asked him about the weather, but he knows it’s anything but. She would not be flippant about something like this. There’s still a healthy amount of fear at the possibility of this not working out. 

  
He gets that. He’s been walking on eggshells around her since they’d gotten back together, terrified that one wrong move could have her walking out the door again. 

But that’s not an option anymore. Now that she’s pregnant, leaving can’t be an option for either of them. Their child deserves two parents. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, having faith in them. “It’s not like we don’t know each other. We’ve been together for over five years, even if we haven’t been together that whole time.” 

Felicity smiles up at him before running a finger down his face, tracing his jawline. Accepting his words as truth. 

“I hope they have your eyes,” she says.  

“I hope they have your brain,” he counters, tapping her temple. 

“You’re just as smart as I am,” she argues. “Just in different ways.” 

Oliver nods, not quite believing her, but willing to accept that she does. 

“I hope they have your light,” he says, honestly. He doesn’t want his child to inherit his penchant for brooding. Even as a child, he’d always had a tendency to get lost in his mind, which is part of why he always excelled at being self-destructive. 

Felicity reaches down to lace their fingers together before bringing their hands up to her lips so she can kiss his knuckles. 

“I hope they have your strength,” she says. 

Oliver smiles at that, and leans over to give her a proper kiss. He closes his eyes as their lips meet and focuses his entire attention on making sure that she understands just how completely in love with her he really is. She needs to know that he’s here for the long haul. 

He licks at her lips until she opens them for him and he can explore her mouth with his tongue. He’s grown accustomed to her tasting like coffee, but that taste is gone. She’s clearly already started adjusting her diet for the baby and he’s glad they won’t have to have that argument. He’d assumed he’d have to pry a coffee cup out of her hands with excessive force, but thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case. 

Instead, she tastes like chocolate and peppermint, letting him know that she’s found her way into the gourmet hot chocolate he’d bought them for tonight. He can forgive her for that. After all, the fact that she’s carrying their child inside of her makes it impossible to be mad at her for anything. 

“Mmmm,” she hums happily as she pulls away from him. “I’m sorry I’ve been grumpy for the past two weeks.”

“It’s okay,” he tells her, leaning in to kiss her again. She grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him closer. Her fingernails scratch at his scalp in that way that he absolutely loves and he reaches down to grab her hips and pull her against him so that she can feel just how much he likes what she’s doing. 

“Oliver,” she pulls away from him to breathe and his lips instantly go to her neck, nibbling at the spot that makes her melt. 

“I want to make it up to you… Take me to bed,” her voice is low and he knows her well enough to know if he looks up, her eyes will be nearly black with want. 

He grins against her and doesn’t bother telling her that she has nothing to make up for. He knows better than to start a fight when she’s turned on and wanting. 

He reluctantly pulls away from her warm body long enough to stand up. He then reaches down to pick her up and carry her. 

“Don’t drop me,” she teases as he makes his way upstairs. 

Her lips find their way to his ear and he has to pause and collect himself so that his knees don’t buckle under him from the pleasure. 

“As if I’d ever drop you,” he promises, moaning she begins leaving open mouth kisses down his neck. “Especially now that you’re carrying our child.” 

Felicity continues to tease him and it forces him to go much slower on the stairs for fear that he really will drop her. She’s always had the power to turn him to Jell-O with those sinful lips of hers. 

He finally makes it to his bedroom and places her on the bed, standing back to take in the view. 

When he’d bought this place, the possibility of Felicity in this bed was one that he only entertained in his most private fantasies. He’d reluctantly come to the conclusion that they weren’t going to work things out when she told him she was seeing Billy. That was the week Thea had convinced him it was time to finally move out of the bunker and get his own place and he had. He’d moved into here and tried his damndest to move on. 

  
It hadn’t worked, but he’d sure tried like hell. 

It’s been a month since they’ve gotten back together and still, the sight of her in this bed makes him emotional. He didn’t think he’d ever have this again. 

“I love you,” he tells her as she lays back on the bed and beckons him with her finger. 

“I love you, too,” Felicity says, giving him a knowing smile. It’s becoming a routine of theirs. He’s done this every single time they’ve had sex in his apartment since they’ve gotten back together.

She doesn’t rush him along and he doesn’t rush. He stands there, giving himself the time to really take her in. She’s gorgeous. But then, that’s always been true, even before he realized he was in love with her. However, there’s something different about looking at her when she’s pregnant. It could be his imagination, but she looks brighter to him. 

With her golden hair surrounding her, she looks like an angel. 

His angel. 

The woman who rescued him from hell. 

And now, she’s not just giving him herself, she’s giving him a child. He’s not sure what he did to deserve any of it, but he’s grateful. Eternally grateful. 

“You’re allowed to touch, you know,” Felicity says with a playful laugh, pulling him out of his own head. 

He pulls his shirt over his head and smiles when she does the same, giving him a perfect view of his favorite purple bra. She has sexier ones, sure. Ones made of lace and barely there straps, but this one is still his favorite because it’s bright colors and comfort. Every time he sees it, he has the mental image of it hanging from the bathroom doorknob and it reminds him of home. 

She is his home. He’s known that for over two years, but it’s never been more true than it is today. Today she’s handed him forever. Pregnancy feels infinitely more committed than a ring ever did. A ring, he’s learned the hard way, can be taken off. They will share a child for the rest of their lives. 

He crawls on the bed until he’s hovering over her, cognizant of his weight. He doesn’t want to crush her. He doesn’t want to do anything that might harm their child. 

He leans down to give her the kiss that she’s been wanting from him. She hums happily into his mouth as her tongue meets his own. She pulls at his hips, trying to get him to rest on top of her, but he doesn’t move. She tries again, but he braces his knees on either side of her so that he doesn’t fall on top of her. 

“Oliver,” Felicity pulls away to glare at him playfully. “Maybe you’ve forgotten how this works, but if you want us to have sex, you’re going to have to come closer.” 

Admittedly, he’d been a little distracted downstairs by her mouth, but he doesn’t think he thought this through. How are they going to have sex without harming the baby? 

“What if it’s not safe?” he asks, moving so that he’s on his side laying next to her. 

“Not safe?” she asks, confused. “I’m already pregnant. Safe sex went out the window. Unless… You don’t have an STI do you? Oh god. I never even thought to ask. We were broken up. Of course you’ve had sex. I just… Wow. Okay. Okay. Why are you just now telling me this?” 

Oliver puts his hand on her shoulder to calm her down and waits until she stops rambling. 

“I don’t want to hurt the baby,” he says.

“Oh.”  

She rolls onto his side and props her head on her hand so that she can see him more clearly. 

“You’re not going to hurt the baby,” she reassures him. “Women have been having sex while pregnant for years.” 

His hands goes out to stroke her stomach as he takes in her words. “Are you sure?” he asks. 

“Positive,” she tells him. “I researched it and everything.” 

He nods his head, trusting that she’s right. There’s just so much that he doesn’t know about pregnancy and that terrifies him. He knows that Samantha didn’t really have a miscarriage, but the emotions he went through back then were still very real and he doesn’t want Felicity to lose this baby. 

“It scares me how much I want this,” he says, eyes on her stomach as he traces hearts into her skin, unable to meet her eyes as he admits his fears. 

Felicity’s hand goes to his face and forces him to look at her.

“Babies are a lot tougher than you’d think,” she says. “I know that this is scary for you and I’m taking every precaution to make sure that you don’t lose another child—” 

His eyes close and he tilts his face into her hand as he tries not to think of William and the pain he still feels every day at having to send his own son away. When he thinks about it too much, he gets so emotional that he starts to cry. 

He doesn’t know what he would do if Felicity lost this baby. 

“But I’m also going to need you to trust me,” she says. “I can’t live the next 8 months in a bubble. The world will keep on spinning whether you like it or not and I’m going to live my life. You need to trust that our child is in the safest place possible for them.” 

He rubs her stomach as he lets her words sink in. If they are really going to do this, Oliver has a lot to learn about pregnancy. He’s willing to accept that Felicity is right and he can’t cover her with bubble wrap and refuse to let her leave the house. But he’s not going to be able to sleep at night until he knows exactly what the protocol is for dealing with pregnant women. He knows the basics: no drugs, no alcohol, no coffee. Beyond that, he’s clueless. 

“I have a lot to learn,” he says, sheepishly. 

“We both do,” she admits. 

“I’ve never been around a pregnant person before. Not since my mom had Thea at least,” he says. “And admittedly, I’d been too young and self-absorbed to pay much attention then.” 

“I’ve never been pregnant before,” she says, teasing him. 

She rolls on top of him and straddles his hips, grinding down on him as she runs her fingers up and down his chest. While he usually loves this part — reveals in how she likes to take control — his hands don’t go to her hips to help her set the pace. They go to her stomach. 

Felicity sighs. “We’re not going to have sex until we talk to the doctor, are we?” she asks, giving him a sad look. 

“I’m sorry.” 

He shakes his head in regret. “It’s not that I don’t want you, because I do… I’m just worried.” 

She stops moving against him and sits back on his thighs, staring down at him forlorn. “It’s okay,” she says, the sides of her lips going up in a small smile to let him know that she’s not upset. “This morning I was worried you were going to hear I was pregnant and move us to Zimbabwe. This kind of overprotective I can deal with.” 

Oliver smiles at her before pulling her down to rest against him. He wraps his arms around her and rubs her back. 

“I would never move you to Zimbabwe.” 

“You would totally move us to Zimbabwe. Don’t even lie,” she says. 

“No,” he argues. “The political situation there is a mess and the unemployment rate alone is awful. A rich white girl is just inviting somebody to kidnap you for ransom. I would never send you to a country where I couldn’t guarantee your safety.” 

“You know the political situation of nearly every country in the world, including ones I’ve never heard of, and you want to argue that you’re not smart,” she grumbles. “Where would you send me then?” 

“You’d live in Kyushu,” Oliver says, thinking of the contingency plans that he’s always had in place for the team in the event that they ever experience a major crisis and had to run. 

“What’s in Kyushu?” Felicity asks. “Where is Kyushu? Is that somewhere in Asia?” 

“It’s in Japan,” he tells her. 

Felicity’s a genius with all things tech related. And her general knowledge of science and history is nothing to scoff at. However, geography has never been her strongest suit. Not if it’s not a city that’s been in the news or a place they’ve needed to know about for Arrow-related activities. The fact that Kyushu isn’t well known to most of the world is a large part of the appeal. That, and the fact that it’s where Tatsu lives. 

“Tatsu is working with the Crescent Order there. She’s promised me to keep you safe if anything were to ever happen…” 

Felicity looks up at him and he can tell she’s debating just how upset she is with him. He’s sure she’s about to use her loud voice, but he doesn’t really understand why. Was he not supposed to put a plan in place for her should she ever need it? 

She takes several steadying breaths before saying, “Since stress is bad for the baby, why don’t I ignore the fact that you’ve already got my extradition planned and instead you promise to come with me if we ever need to run.” 

“It’s not an extradition,” he argues. 

“Oh no? You don’t have a plan to forcibly send me out of the country?” 

“Is it naive if I was hoping you’d go willingly?” he asks, the glare she sends him is answer enough. 

“I didn’t set up an escape plan to force you away from me specifically,” he explains carefully. “I set up contingency plans for all of the team.” 

When she doesn’t respond, he realizes that she’s waiting for a more thorough explanation. 

“A few years ago, around the time that the Slade came to town, I realized that there would eventually come a time when we faced an enemy that I couldn’t stop. So I quietly began setting up escape plans for everyone so that, should the time come when I was no longer around to keep you safe, you all would be okay.” 

“You came up with a plan for everyone?” she asks, eyeing him carefully, trying to catch him in a lie. 

He nods. 

“Where were you planning on sending John?” she asks. 

“To a safe house in Macau,” he answers quickly, looking her straight in the eyes so that she’ll know he’s telling the truth. 

“Thea?” 

“Anatoly has a cottage in Estonia,” he says. “It’s also your plan B if anything were to happen to Tatsu or your cover was blown. Anatoly has promised me that he’ll keep you all safe.” 

“You really have thought this all through, haven’t you?” she asks. “What’s your escape plan?” 

Oliver shrugs. 

“You do have an escape plan,” she asks, raising her eyebrow at him. “Because no escape plan would be very Old Oliver.” 

“I have money and passports stored in a few places around the world,” he says. “I have some options.” 

Felicity pulls on his hand until he’s sitting up and she can drape her arms over his shoulders. 

“Not a single one of those options better include leaving me or our child,” she says. “If we’re really going to do this, I won’t have our kid growing up like I did. You can’t leave us when things get scary. If things ever get bad enough that we have to leave, we leave together.” 

Oliver takes his time before answering, knowing that she isn’t kidding here. Once he makes her this promise, there won’t be any turning back. There will be no second chances. 

He nods his head. 

“I’m serious,” she says. “If we’re going to do this, you need to be all in.” 

Oliver runs his hands through her hair, playing with one strand that is curlier than the rest. He then smiles up at her and places a soft kiss to her lips. 

“I am,” he says, placing another kiss along her neck. 

“100%.” 

He kisses her collarbone. 

“Without a doubt.” 

He kisses her shoulder. 

“All in.” 

They spend the afternoon whispering reassurances against each other’s skin and talking about their hopes and dreams for their child. By the time dinner rolls around, Felicity is laying on his couch wearing his T-Shirt, looking at two bedroom houses for them to move into, while he cooks dinner. 

If anyone had told him a few years ago that this would be his life, he wouldn’t have believed them. Oliver isn’t the guy that gets the happy ending. But one look at Felicity, hair down and wild, chewing on the pen she’s using to write down addresses within their price range, he knows he’s somehow found himself at the end of the story. The part where the guy finally gets the girl. And the crazy thing is, he’s not running away from this in fear. 

No. Oliver Queen wasn’t lying to Felicity before. He wants this. He wants the white picket fence and the double sinks. He wants a little kid running around the yard calling him daddy. He’s all in. 

He’s so all in that it hurts. 

And to think, this morning, he’d been preparing himself for her to break up with him. Sometimes, Oliver thinks, life doesn’t completely suck. In fact, he’d be willing to take the risk of saying, it’s actually pretty great. 

Yeah. He might have gone through hell, but that’s in the past. Right now? In this moment? Things are pretty great.  



	22. Soulmate AU part 2: Unbinding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: I had several comments asking for me to continue a Soulmate AU I had written about before. While I don’t have any current plans on making it a multi-chapter, I did add another one-shot to the collection. Read the first part [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9135610/chapters/20759470)

Felicity Smoak is 7 years old when her father abandons her. Up until now, her life has been perfect. She’s had everything she’s ever wanted. But when her father leaves, he takes her entire world with him. 

There’s no explanation. He leaves no note. The only signs that anything is amiss are her crying mother, his missing things, and an empty chair at the dinner table. It’s for the best that he doesn’t try to explain himself. There are no words he could possibly say to make any of it okay. 

Felicity feels like she’s dying. It’s like somebody reached into her chest and ripped her heart from her body. She can’t breathe. She is utterly gutted by his abandonment.

And then… she’s not. 

At least, she’s not drowning in feelings of inadequacy and loneliness like she should be. The sadness is still there, but it’s also mixed with something else. A foreign emotion that she can’t quite place. 

It’s almost like… hope? 

Whatever it is, it doesn’t come from her. It’s pushing it’s way into her heart and making itself at home, despite having no logical reason to be there. 

Her mother smiles when she listens to Felicity try and explain her feelings. She uses a word that Felicity has only ever heard in storybooks and movies. 

Soulmate.

As she listens to her mother explain the concept to her, the feelings inside of her becomes less foreign. More settled. She welcomes the emotions, knowing that it’s her soulmates way of taking care of her, even from a distance. 

Somewhere out there is a boy who loves her and cares about her, even if he’s never met her before. 

It doesn’t completely erase her depression. It doesn’t stop her from feeling sadness over her father’s abandonment. She still feels worthless at times. On her darker days, she grows angry at the boy that continues to share his feelings of love with her. How can a boy who’s never met her, care so deeply? How can he love her when her own father couldn’t? 

On her darkest days, she prays she never meets her soulmate. She fears that he’ll take one look at her and run for the hills just like her dad. After all, the kids at school do nothing but tease her for being a nerd, why should her soulmate be any different? 

But no matter how upset she gets. No matter how many nights she cries herself to sleep, he’s always there. And eventually, after a year of living without her father, she begins to accept the way things are. She begins to understand that things are never going back to the way they were, and she owes it to her mother, her soulmate, and more importantly, herself, to try and be happy.

And for a few years, she is. 

When she’s 10 years old, she falls to the ground grasping her arm in pain. Several of the YMCA staff surround her on the playground trying to figure out what’s wrong. 

“What happened?” Ms. Gilbert asks. 

“Did you fall?” asks Mr. Frank. 

“Somebody go get Ms. Calendar,” cries Mrs. Wilder. 

Felicity can’t explain it. She hadn’t been doing anything. She’d been sitting on the bench, reading  _ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets _ when suddenly, her arm felt like it had been snapped in two and she’d fallen to the ground crying out in pain. 

“Felicity, I need to see your arm,” Ms. Gilbert says, reaching out to gently remove Felicity’s other arm from her injured one. 

“It hurts,” she cries. 

Ms. Gilbert carefully straightens out her arms and examines it closely. 

“It doesn’t look injured,” Ms. Gilbert says. “What were you doing?” 

“Reading,” Felicity says, wiping the ever flowing tears from her eyes. “It’s broken.” 

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Mr. Frank says. 

Felicity glares at him. What does he know? He’s a part-time staff member at the YMCA. He’s hardly a medical professional. 

“Well it hurts!” she yells at him. 

Ms. Calendar, the youth director, comes out of the building to inspect her arm. 

“What happened, Felicity?” she asks. 

“I was just reading,” she says, crying out as a new wave of pain hits her.

“Are you sure that was all you were doing?” Ms. Calendar asks, taking her arm and slowly moving it around. “You weren’t doing something you weren’t supposed to and are scared to tell us?”

Felicity glares at the woman for insinuating that she’s a liar. “I was reading.” 

“That’s all the kid does,” Mrs. Wilder says.

“Very well,” Ms. Calendar says. “She’ll need to go to the hospital to get checked out.” 

“I can’t go to the hospital,” Felicity cries. “We don’t have insurance.”

“Very well,” Ms. Calendar says. “The free clinic then. Somebody should call Donna Smoak and let her know.” 

Three hours later, Felicity is sitting in a bed at the free clinic as a doctor explains to her mother that the X-Rays are clean and there’s nothing wrong with her.

“It’s him,” Felicity says, sitting up as she finally puts all the pieces together in her mind.

She hadn’t been doing anything when she’d gotten hurt. She’d just been sitting there reading. There was no reason why she should be in pain. Her arm isn’t red. There’s no bruising. The doctor just told them that the X-Ray is clean. 

Still, the pain had been blinding, so she knows it wasn’t just in her head. It all makes so much more sense now. 

“It’s who, Sweetheart?” her mom asks. 

“My soulmate,” she says, a smile growing as she realizes that she’s finally able to return the favor. For over a year, he’d been there supporting her through the worst of her pain. Even now, whenever she’s having a bad day, she can feel him there, giving her strength. 

“Your soulmate?” the doctor says, an amused smile on his face. “Aren’t you a little young to be feeling your soulmate already?” 

Felicity shakes her head. “He must have gotten hurt. That’s why I was in pain.” 

Her mom and the doctor look at each other, sharing a knowing glance. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” she asks. “It was him?” 

“It would explain why you were in such intense pain without any symptoms,” the doctor says. 

“I thought the medical community didn’t believe in soulmates,” Donna teases him. 

“Scientifically speaking, no,” the doctor says. “But I’ve seen enough cases like Felicity’s to know some things can’t be explained by science.”

“Just because you don’t know yet, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an explanation,” Felicity says with a shrug. “Look at all the scientist who were wrong in the past. Doctors used to believe in humorism.” 

“How do you know about humorism?” the doctor asks.

“I read,” she says. 

“She goes through a book a day,” her mom says with the kind of pride that always makes Felicity blush. 

“Well, either way, I believe you,” the doctor says. “And I think it was very brave of you to take on all of that pain for your soulmate. He must really appreciate it.

Felicity smiles at the thought of easing her soulmates pain. 

“He does the same for me,” she says. 

The doctor turns back to her mom. “I’m fairly certain that the worst of it is over. If she’s not feeling pain now, it’s likely her soulmate sought medical attention and is on painkillers of his own. Still, feel free to give her children’s Tylenol if she complains. If it gets worse, come back in and I’ll write you a prescription for something stronger.”

“Thank you, doctor,” her mom says, helping Felicity down from the bed. 

“Thanks,” Felicity says. 

“You just keep taking care of your boy,” the doctor says, leading them out of the room and towards the nurse’s station so her mom can take care of the paperwork. 

Being curious as she always is, she peeks into several of the other rooms. The one that stops her in her tracks is the Hispanic couple. The woman is lying in bed as a doctor stitches up her side. The man next to her is holding her hand, clutching his own side as he cries out in pain.

“See? Soulmates,” the doctor leans over to whisper into her ear, startling her. 

She looks up to meet his eyes and he winks at her. 

The nurse gives Felicity a lollipop and a Superman sticker, which she promptly puts on her bookmark. It’ll remind her of her soulmate and she likes that. 

Her mom leads her to the bus stop and they sit down and wait for the next bus to take them home. It’ll be at least a twenty minute wait and a forty minute ride home if everything goes according to plan. 

She opens up her copy of Harry Potter and begins the process of trying to find her spot. She’d lost it when she’d dropped her book on the playground earlier today. 

“Hey, Sweetheart?”

“Hmm?” Felicity responds, her eyes not leaving the page as she tries to determine if she’s read that section before. 

“I’m really proud of you,” she says. 

Felicity looks up from her book to find her mom smiling down at her with watery eyes. 

“Why?” she asks, reaching up to wipe a tear from her mom’s face.

“Not everyone chooses love,” her mom tells her.

“What do you mean?” she asks. 

“Some people choose to turn it off,” her mom says.

“Why would they do that?”

Felicity might be the smartest kid in her school, but that’s all about literacy and numbers. She can read at a 9th grade level and solve 12th grade math problems. But book smart isn’t everything. And when it comes to understanding people, Felicity knows she still has a lot to learn. 

“Because sometimes it’s easier to be alone than it is to try and carry somebody else’s burdens as well as your own.” 

Felicity doesn’t understand what her mother means by that. She’s experienced pain and she’s experienced having it taken away by the person who was made for you. She doesn’t understand why anybody would turn that off. 

Then she turns twenty. 

With a dead boyfriend, an empty heart, and near daily pain and suffering, Felicity learns just how easy it is to turn it off, because her soulmate does. He doesn’t offer her an ounce of comfort or hope as she struggles to make it through each day without Cooper. He’s severed his connection to her. He doesn’t want to feel her pain anymore. 

And there are moments when she gets it. When she’s screaming out as she feels like she’s being stabbed in the stomach and her roommate is telling her to shut it off, she understands where he’s coming from. She sees what her mom had been getting at. How can she continue to take on his pain when she has so much of her own? 

But she doesn’t turn it off. Even if he can, she never will. 

After all, how can she fault a man for not wanting to comfort her heartbreak when he’s clearly being tortured on a regular basis. 

So she carries on. She takes every shot, shoulders every bruise, because she knows what it feels like to be alone, and she doesn’t want that for him. 

And all along, she prays that one day, it will be enough for him. That he’ll see how much she cares and be willing to open their connection again. 

But even if he never does, she won’t cut him off. Because when she was seven and didn’t know how to breathe on her own, let alone put one foot in front of the other, he was there for her. So she’ll be there for him. 

Even if it kills them both. 


	23. Countdowns and Silver Linings

Oliver Queen is Tommy’s best friend. He loves him. Dearly. They are basically family. But if Oliver Queen doesn’t stop telling him how many days there are until Valentine’s Day, Tommy is going to break into his father’s safe, steal his gun, and shoot him in the face. Better yet, he’s going to push him off of a cliff. Or maybe in front of a moving train. He doesn’t know exactly how he will do it, but by god, Tommy is going to murder him.

They are in 5th grade. Who cares about Valentine’s Day? It’s not like it’s a cool holiday like Martin Luther King Day where they get the day off. They still have to go to school, don’t they? All Valentine’s Day is, is a day where they all have to pretend to like everyone in their class and buy candy and cards for people that he can’t stand.

And right now, that list includes Oliver.

“Four more days—“

“Shut up,” Tommy says when Oliver walks up to him that morning at school.

“What’s wrong with you?” Oliver asks.

“At the moment? You are.”

“Okay…” Oliver says, eyeing him warily. “I’m not really sure what I did.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Tommy mutters.

“Oh, Laurel just got here. We can talk more at lunch, right?” Oliver says, not waiting for his response before running off after Laurel Lance.

And that, right there, is Tommy’s problem.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Laurel. He does. She’s funny, super smart, brave, and completely fearless. Tommy totally gets Oliver’s crush on her. He really does. It’s that, ever since Halloween, Oliver has been obsessed with her and will talk of nothing else but Valentine’s Day. The day where he’s finally allowed to ask her out.

Tommy just wants his best friend back.

First his dad leaves him after his mother died and now Oliver’s abandoning him.

Why does everyone always leave?

Grumbling to himself, he goes to sit down on the bench. He’s not in the mood to play soccer anymore.

“Pathetic,” he says to himself, kicking at the gravel on the ground.

“Do you mind?” a voice says next to him.

Tommy turns to look at the girl. He hadn’t noticed her sitting there before.

Felicity Smoak. She’s been at their school since October and Tommy’s not sure he’s ever heard her speak outside of class.

“I’m sorry?” he says, unsure what he’s done to earn the annoyed look she’s giving him.

“I said do you mind?” she says. “I’m reading here and you’re sitting on my bench.”

“Actually,” he says with a smirk. “My family donated the money for this playground. So if we’re getting technical, you’re sitting on my bench.”

Felicity rolls her eyes as she slams her book closed and shoves it into her backpack.

“Where are you going?” Tommy asks, amused that so much annoyance and anger can come from a girl so seemingly harmless.

“To try and find a place in this school where I can read and not be surrounded by arrogant, entitled, know-it-all, jerks!” she says, glaring at him.

Tommy nods his head and decides not to say anything more. It’s obvious that whatever has pissed her off, isn’t him. He’s just the unlucky target.

He gets that.

He’s been lashing out at unsuspecting people, too, when the person he really wants to yell at is his father.

Or Oliver.

Oliver deserves it after ditching him for Laurel Lance.

****

“Three more days—“ Oliver says in lieu of a greeting when Tommy answers the door.

“I know,” Tommy says, rolling his eyes. “Do you want to know how I know? Because yesterday was 4 more days and you told me 17 times. The day before that, was 5 more days and you told me 24 times. I get it. You’re excited for Valentine’s Day so that you can finally have a girlfriend.”

Rather than apologize for being an insensitive idiot, Oliver just beams.

“Only three more days.”

Tommy doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead he turns around and heads back to the entertainment room to finish watching the latest episode of X-Men.

“Mr. Oliver, welcome,” Margaret greets him with a warm smile. “Would you like some waffles.”

“No waffles for Oliver,” Tommy tells his housekeeper turned guardian. “If he’s hungry he can get bread and water or go home at eat at his own house. I really don’t care. But he doesn’t get your special waffles.”

Margaret eyes him like she wants to say more, but doesn’t. Despite the fact that she’s been taking care of him like a parent ever since his dad ran off to who knows where to do who knows what, she’s still an employee and technically works for them.

Tommy has certainly thought several times about firing her so that his dad would have no choice but to come home again, but Tommy’s not stupid. He’s sure all that would accomplish is his father hiring a new housekeeper to take care of him and then where would he be? Margaret would be gone, he’d have no waffles in the morning, and no father.

At least with Margaret here, there’s somebody that cares about him around, even if it’s not the same things as having a parent.

“Are you mad because you don’t have anyone to ask out?” Oliver asks.

“Yesterday was Friday,” Tommy says, looking at him like he’s an idiot.

“Yeah.”

“And you went over to Laurel’s house after school,” Tommy says.

“Do you not like Laurel?” Oliver asks.

Tommy rolls his eyes. God, Oliver is so dense sometimes.

“I don’t like being stuck in this house,” Tommy says. “I don’t like sleeping here without my dad and you told me that I could come over every weekend, and yet, here we are. Here. I slept here.”

“Oh,” Oliver says, finally getting it. “You know, you could have come over, even if I wasn’t there.”

“So I could be alone at your house instead of mine? Not the point,” Tommy says, falling back onto the couch. He grabs the remote and turns up the television, purposefully ignoring Oliver.

Oliver sits down next to him and the two of them watch the rest of X-Men in silence. Rather than talking during the commercials, Tommy pretends to be fascinated with whatever ads are on the TV and Oliver thankfully doesn’t try to interrupt.

It’s not until the episode is over that Oliver reaches over and takes the remote out of his hand and shuts off the TV.

“I’m sorry I forgot,” Oliver says.

Tommy can tell that he’s being sincere. He’s known Oliver his entire life and he knows when he’s just saying something to avoid confrontation and when he’s being truthful. He really does feel bad.

“Do you want some waffles?” Tommy asks.

Oliver smiles at him, clearly relieved that Tommy isn’t holding onto his anger. “I thought all I was allowed was bread and water.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if I feed you some good food you’ll stop being such an idiot,” Tommy says half-heartedly.

He stands up and reaches out his hand to help Oliver up off of the couch. The two of them walk back to the kitchen where Margaret is already making waffles. Clearly she’d known Tommy wouldn’t hold onto his anger for long. He never does. Not when it comes to Oliver.

“How are you doing?” Oliver asks as he sits down at the island and waits for Margaret to make them both a plate.

“I’m fine,” Tommy says with a shrug.

Truth be told, he hadn’t slept much last night, but there’s nothing Oliver can do about that now.

“After we finish this, we’ll go to my house for the rest of the weekend,” Oliver says, patting him on the back. Oliver’s always been able to see past what he’s saying and know the truth. It’s part of why he’s been so annoyed with his obsession with Laurel. While he’s been busy obsessing over Valentine’s Day, he’s been missing how miserable Tommy is this week.

“I’ll go pack a bag,” Tommy says, standing up from the barstool.

“What about waffles,” Oliver asks as the plates are set out for them.

“I’m not hungry,” he says, ignoring the look that he gets from Oliver. He doesn’t need another lecture about skipping meals. Oliver knows that he can’t eat when he’s stressed, and lately, he’s been really stressed.

****

Oliver doesn’t tell him there are two more days until Valentine’s Day. Not once. But he doesn’t have to. Tommy saw him mark the day off on his calendar this morning when they’d been getting dressed. Just like he sees him constantly pull a piece of paper out of his pocket to read when he thinks Tommy isn’t looking.

Oliver may not be talking about it out of respect for Tommy, but that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it.

It’s okay. Tommy isn’t upset about it. He wants his best friend to be happy. Which is why he hopes that Laurel says yes when Oliver asks her out on Tuesday. Oliver is his best friend and he doesn’t want him to be rejected.

His annoyance wasn’t with Oliver wanting to ask out Laurel, it was with him forgetting him and being an awful friend. The fact that he’s listening now? It makes everything okay again.

****

Tommy doesn’t go to school on Monday. His father calls him as he’s packing his backpack for the day and he sounds drunk. Tommy doesn’t know if he’s hoping that his father is on the other side of the world, drinking at a reasonable hour, or that he’s so depressed he’s trashed at 7 o’clock in the morning. Neither option give him the sense that his father is coming back anytime soon.

Tommy stays on the phone with his dad for an hour. They talk about school, soccer, and other frivolous things. Neither of them broach the topic they both desperately want to talk about — his mom.

It’s not until Tommy is about to hang up the phone that his dad says it and his entire world falls apart.

“You look like her,” his dad says before ending the call.

The sorrow in his voice sends a chill through Tommy. His father is never coming home.

Tommy convinces Margaret to let him stay home from school that day and spends most of the time sobbing into his pillow feeling guilty for something he has no control over. His father is gone because of him. Because looking at him makes him think of his mother.

Oliver shows up after school lets out and crawls into bed with him so they can hide under the covers. It’s not much, but the blanket over his head is the only thing protecting Tommy from the outside world.

“Her birthday is today,” Tommy whispers. “She’s supposed to be celebrating and instead she’s gone. My dad is gone. I don’t have anybody.”

“You have me,” Oliver says firmly. “And tomorrow is going to be better.”

“How do you know?” Tommy asks.

“Just trust me,” Oliver says with a smile that means he totally up to something.

“Well it can’t be any worse than today.”

“Of course not,” Oliver says. “Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.”

****

Tommy can’t say that he’s in the best mood when he arrives at school the next day. He’s still coming to terms with the fact that his father left, in part, because of him. He’s still missing his mother like crazy. And he still hates Valentine’s Day.

All of the girls are running around in their bubblegum pink dresses painting red hearts on each other’s cheeks. All of the boys are either trying to build up the courage to awkwardly give chocolates to the girls they like or attempting to hide from the overabundance of pink in the school.

And really, if the school isn’t allowed to decorate for Christmas or Halloween due to parent protesting, why can’t that policy extend to Valentine’s Day as well?

So Tommy avoids the playground that morning and heads somewhere he’s sure will be empty: the library.

“Please tell me that you’re not stalking me, because 5th grade is a little young for my first sexual harassment lawsuit,” Felicity says when he walks into the library.

“What?” he asks, taken back.

“My first sexual harassment lawsuit,” she says again. “Stalking is a form of sexual harassment and if you think I’m not reporting you then suing you for millions in damages, you’ve got another think coming rich boy.”

“I see somebody was paying a little too much attention during our ‘Stranger Danger’ assembly last week,” Tommy says with a laugh.

“I see somebody isn’t denying the fact that you’re following me,” Felicity says.

“Do you always give everyone such a hard time?” he asks, sitting down at her table.

She rolls her eyes and turns back to her book, pointedly ignoring him.

“I wasn’t following you,” he says, wanting to make sure that was clear on the off chance she’s not all talk and no action.

The raise of her eyebrow tells him that she’s listening.

“I’m hiding from the explosion of pink outside,” he says.

“I would have thought this was your super bowl,” she says.

“Excuse me?”

“My mom said that all rich boys are players who use flowers and romance to trick girls into giving away their hearts to men who just want to use them and break them,” she says, closing her book and looking him straight in the eye. “Ergo, Valentine’s Day is your super bowl.”

“Wow,” Tommy says, a bit taken back. “Your mom sounds super jaded.”

“My mom isn’t an idiot,” she says. “And neither am I.”

“I never would have accused you of being one,” he says. “You’re the smartest girl in our class.”

“I’m the smartest person in that class,” she raises her eyebrow at him and he’s reminded of a word he’s heard Margaret use a few times when watching various stories on the news: feminist.

“Sorry,” he says. “Is that why you don’t talk to anyone at school? Because you think we’re all… what did you call us? Players?”

“Not all of you… but yes,” Felicity says.

He’s about to ask another question when the door opens and Oliver walks in.

“Felicity, hi,” Oliver says and Tommy is surprised to see her blush. “Oh, Tommy… What are you doing here?”

“I was just talking to Felicity,” he says, eyeing the way his best friend is shifting nervously back and forth on his feet – something his overly confident friend never is— and the way she’s suddenly fussing over her hair.

“Laurel was looking for you,” Oliver says.

It’s the mention of Laurel’s name that allows Tommy to put the pieces together.

Oliver has been spending a lot of time with Laurel recently as he obsessed over Valentine’s Day coming up. Laurel and Felicity eat lunch together every day. Oliver is looking just as awkward right now with Felicity as all of the other boys are outside trying to build up the courage to ask out their crushes. Felicity is blushing like a schoolgirl, something he never would have expected after her rant on rich boys being players.

Oliver wasn’t hanging out with Laurel because he had a crush on her, he was hanging out with her because he had a crush on Felicity.

Tommy reaches out and pats Oliver on the back.

“Good luck, man,” he says before heading out in order to give them some privacy.

When he gets to the playground, he quickly scans it for Laurel, wondering if she really had needed him or if that was just something Oliver said in order to get him to leave him alone so he could ask out Felicity.

He finds her sitting on a bench holding a card.

“Hey,” Tommy says, sitting down next to her. “So Oliver likes Felicity, huh?”

Laurel looks up at him and smiles. “I tried to tell him on Halloween that he could ask her out at any time, but he’s convinced that you’re only allowed to ask girls out on Valentine’s Day.”

“I’m not sure where he got that idea but whoever told him that must walk on water for him to not believe either of us,” Tommy says with a laugh. “He sent me out here so that he could be alone with Felicity. Do you think she’ll say yes?”

“I hope so, for both of their sakes,” Laurel says. “Oliver is a good guy and Felicity’s had it kind of tough. But… Tommy?”

“Hmm?”

“That’s not why Oliver sent you out here,” she says, handing him a card.

Tommy takes the card from her and opens it up, expecting to find a generic Valentine’s Day card that you buy in packs of 25 so that you can give one to everyone in class. Instead he finds a homemade card with the most beautiful drawing of a dove on the front.

“You made this?” Tommy asks. Laurel nods.

“I’m really sorry about your mom. I told Oliver that I wanted to wait for another time. That you’ve had a hard week and the last thing you needed was me, but he insisted that asking you would make you feel better and… well… He is your best friend so I should probably believe him right?”

“Ask me what?” he asks.

“Will you be my valentine?”

Tommy smiles at that. Oliver was right. It does make him feel better.

His mom is still dead and his father still ran away, so life pretty much sucks right now. But Laurel wanting to be his valentine? It’s certainly a silver lining in the clouds on a very dark day.

“Yeah,” he says with a smile, reaching out awkwardly to grab her hand. He’s never done this before. He doesn’t know how to act around girls yet, but he’s seen some of the romantic comedies that Margaret watches and things that hand holding is a thing girls like.

“I’ll be your valentine.”


	24. Hidden Alleys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Olicity Smut-A-Thon 2017. So it goes without saying, this is explicit. 
> 
> Prompt: “I’d be more than happy to show you a good time, if you’re looking for one.”
> 
> ** BE WARNED- THIS CHAPTER IS EXPLICIT***

Felicity stands at the bar, pulling at the hem of her skirt awkwardly while she waits for the bartender to notice her. She’s starting to regret everything about this night. From the skirt that’s a solid two inches shorter than she usually wears — and that’s saying something because she has an affinity for some short skirts — to the bar that overcrowded with drunk college kids.

This isn’t her scene. She much prefers quieter bars where she doesn’t have to wait twenty minutes for a drink while girls who can’t possibly be twenty-one elbow past her and use their ample cleavage to get endless supplies of shots.

She’s tempted to just call it a night and go home. She’s got several hours worth of episodes on her DVR that she needs to catch up on and really, taking out her contacts, throwing her hair up in a messy bun, and putting on some yoga pants sounds heavenly right now. What was she trying to prove with this anyways? She never had the crazy college experience because she’d been so young and considered jailbait to most of the campus, but maybe that’s okay.

“I’d be more than happy to show you a good time,” a voice says behind her, bracing his hands on either side of her, before saying into her ear, “If you’re looking for one.”

The heat of his breath on her ear sends a shiver through her body and right to her core, while the logical part of her is screaming ‘Stranger Danger.’

The man gestures to the bartender who, miraculously, notices the man in seconds and takes their order.

Felicity glares at the bartender, unamused that he’d come running for this man when she’d been trying to get his attention for twenty minutes. Her feminist heart wants to tear him a new one, but she knows there’s no hope in gaining his attention again once her glass of red wine is put in front of her.

She turns around to confront the man who’s both saved her from having to continue to wait for a drink while also assaulting her personal space. He’s handsome.

Incredibly handsome.

Like… He could be on the cover of GQ with that blue sweater that’s bringing out his eyes and that rugged scruff. He’s also built. Really, really built. She can see that even though his sweater. It’s a shame his pickup lines are complete trash. Or a blessing.

“What’s a beautiful thing like yourself doing all alone on a Friday night?” he asks.

Yes, it’s most certainly a blessing that his pickup lines are so terrible. If he were perfect, she’d be an awkward mess. She’s never been great at this part of dating. She’s a babbling mess and always says the wrong thing. As long as he’s using those awful lines on her, she can keep her cool.

“Is that really what you’re going with?” she asks, stepping away from the bar and forcing him to drop his arms from where they were bracketing her body.

He’s still close. The overcrowding of the bar makes it hard for her to move far. The two of them share a drink as they try and talk over the loud music. It’s hard to hear when he’s not talking directly into her ear, but what she does get is that his name is Oliver and he works at City Hall. She asks him what he’s doing at a place like this, but she can’t hear his answer.

He seems nice enough. The longer they talk, the more his initial charm wears off and she can start to see the real him. She likes him. He seems like a decent enough guy and he’s hot.

When they finish their drinks, Felicity is about to ask him if he wants to move to the dance floor, except a drunk frat boy takes that moment to spill his beer all down the front of her dress.

“Nice,” the frat boy say with a leer while a friend of his yells, “Wet T-shirt contest!”

Oliver looks like he’s about to murder the boys, so she pulls on his sleeve. It won’t due to have him arrested tonight for beating up some college kids. She has plans and they don’t include a visit to the local precinct.

Oliver is still growling as she pulls him out the back door and into the alley.

“What assholes,” he says.

“It’s fine,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. The cool air mixed with her now wet skin has caused goosebumps over her arms and legs.

“You’re cold,” Oliver says. It’s not a question, it’s a fact.

He immediately grabs the hem of his sweater and pulls it off, handing it to her.

“Thank you,” she says, pulling it on over her head, taking an extra second to enjoy the smell of his cologne that has seeped into the fabric.

He’s left in just a white T-shirt, which allows her a better view of his muscles.

His delicious, hard muscles.

God. What she wouldn’t do to put her hands on his body. Or her tongue. She’s sure he tastes just as good as he smells.

“Felicity?”

The way he says her name causes a fresh set of goosebumps on her flesh.

“I vastly underestimated what the sight of you in my sweater would do to me,” he says, causing her to blush.

Despite the cool air, a wave of heat hits her at the way he’s looking her up and down. Like he wants nothing more to devour her.

It’s that look that gives her the courage to blurt out, “Do you want to come home with me?”

Oliver smiles at her and she can feel her inner walls clench in desire. She wants him. Desperately.

“I don’t know if I can wait to get to your place,” he says, taking a step towards her. She instinctively backs up until her back is against the wall and he’s inches from her.

“Then don’t,” she whispers, daring him to do something.

His lips are on hers in an instant. His hands travel up and down her body, grabbing at her, unable to pick one place to settle. She feels like she’s being devoured by him and it’s the hottest thing she’s ever done.

Felicity isn’t this kind of girl. She doesn’t pick guys up at bars. She doesn’t have sex with people she’s just met. And she certainly doesn’t have sex in dark alleys of bars where anyone could open the door at any moment and see them.

Yet here she is, doing it with Oliver.

It feels dangerous which makes it all the more appealing.

She wraps her arms around his broad shoulders and buries one of her hands in his hair, pulling at it and causing him to moan. His thigh is instantly between her legs and she shamelessly grinds against him, needing to find release.

“I don’t usually do this.”

She’s not sure why she feels the need to clarify that, but she does.

“Then let’s make sure it’s good for you,” he says before attacking her neck next with his wonderfully sinful lips.

There really should be a law against men like him. It’s not fair.

He grabs onto her right leg and lifts it up, allowing her better leverage and she can’t help the loud moan she lets out as the change in angle allows her to rub against him just right.

“Shhh,” he whispers into her ear. “You don’t want anyone walking past to hear us.”

Her eyes dart to the end of the alley. It’s empty, thank god, but he’s right. They aren’t that far from the street. If they are too loud, people would hear them and they’d run the risk of getting caught.

And then not only would she get arrested for indecency, but she’d never get off. And right now, she feels like her entire body will catch on fire if she doesn’t get off soon.

“Please,” she begs.

He grabs her other thigh and lifts her up against the wall. That’s when she feels him through his jeans, rubbing against her.

“Yes,” she says.

She fumbles for the purse she has over her shoulder that had since gotten caught under his sweater, while Oliver digs around in his pockets. She beats him to it and pulls out a condom, handing it to him.

“I thought you don’t usually do this,” he teases, taking the condom from her and reaching for his belt.

“A girl should always be prepared for anything,” she says with a smirk. “Even if an insanely attractive man taking me in the alley of a bar wasn’t exactly something I ever saw happening.”

“Surprising, considering that dress you were wearing had every man’s eyes on you,” he says with a glare. “I didn’t like it.”

“And yet, you’re the one out here about to have sex with me. They aren’t.”

She reaches down and pulls him out of his pants, ending the playful banter they had going as he moans.

“Fuck,” he says.

“That’s the plan.”

He rolls the condom onto himself before hiking the dress and sweater up above her hips. She shivers as the cool breeze hits her soaked underwear.

“Oh god,” they both say as Oliver’s fingers push her underwear aside to finger her.

“You’re so wet,” he groans, hips thrusting against her, causing her to moan. “I want to taste you.”

He looks like he’s about to drop her down so that he can do just that, so she pulls on his hair and forces him to look at her.

“Don’t you dare,” she says. “I want to feel you.”

He nods, but he looks torn. Like he can’t decide which he wants more, to fuck her into the brick wall or to lick her dry.

“There will be time to taste me later,” she says, confident that this won’t be their last time.

It can’t be. She won’t let it.

Satisfied with that answer, he grabs a hold of himself and moves them around until he’s positioned at her entrance.

“Are you sure?” he asks her.

“Yes,” she cries out, desperate for him to just do something already. All of this waiting is torture.

He enters her slowly and Felicity swears that this is what heaven is like. It’s ecstasy.

“Fuck me,” she says, her voice full of want and that’s all it takes for him to snap.

He starts driving into her hard and fast, exactly like she needs him to. His face is buried into her neck in an effort to keep his grunts quiet and she’s biting a hole through her bottom lip as she tries not to scream out in pleasure.

The brick at her back is scratching her up, but she doesn’t care. No. The only things she cares about right now is reaching the orgasm that’s just out of reach. She scratches at his back, trying to hold onto anything that will keep her from floating up into the sky with how light she’s feeling right now.

Honestly, who knew sex could be this amazing? She’s always enjoyed the sex she’s had. There’s nothing wrong with the sex she’s had in the past. She’s loved it. But the added adrenaline of the night is enough to push what is already a pretty rewarding act to a whole other level. This is… perfection. Bliss. Rapture. Euphoria. It’s… she can’t find the perfect word to describe what it is, but it’s something else.

“Touch yourself,” he says, wrapping his arms around her back to protect her from rubbing up against the brick wall anymore than she already has. She’s grateful. She hadn’t realized how badly it’d been hurting until it stopped.

Keeping one hand on his shoulder, she uses the other to reach down between them and rub at her clit.

Both of them moan in unison. His head is on her shoulder staring down at her hand and while usually that would make her self conscious, tonight it just makes her bold.

“Do you like that?” she asks, her voice breathless from the orgasm that she knows is just moments away.

“Yes. Yes,” he grunts, thrusting into her harder and faster. He’s starting to lose control, and she knows that means he must be close, too.

“Come for me,” he asks. “I want to watch you come undone.”

She rubs herself harder and circles her hips down with every thrust, making damn sure that she’s going to feel this in the morning. She wants to remember this night.

It doesn’t take more than another thrust or two for her to lose it. Her walls clench around him and her vision gets spotty as she comes.

“Good girl,” he says, making her roll her eyes and laugh. “God that was just… That was good. Yes.”

He continues to thrust into her, but seems to be having trouble finding that blissful release. His forehead creases in concentration as he drives into her again and again, but he’s not finding what he needs to let go.

Felicity wraps both of her arms around his neck again and whispers his name, “Oliver.”

He lifts his eyes to meet her own and she smiles at him. “I love you.”

That’s all it takes for him to come crashing into her. And truth be told, she kind of misses the mess that it usually causes, but a condom had been necessary. Not just to maintain the illusion, but because she didn’t relish the idea of having to travel home with his come flowing down her thighs for all the world to see. Her dress really was a bit too short.

“You broke character,” he says once he finally finishes coming down.

“Well, it seemed like you needed some help there,” she teases.

“I was getting along just fine,” he says with a playful glare.

She taps him on the shoulder, signalling that it’s safe for him to let her down. Once she’s safely on her feet, he pulls the condom off and tosses it into the dumpster before tucking himself back into his pants.

“I forgot how much I hate sex with condoms,” he grumbles, making her laugh.

“Just admit it,” she says, reaching for his hand as they both start towards the street to hail a cab back home. “You don’t like sleeping with anyone but your wife.”

“Fine,” he says. “I don’t like sleeping with anyone but my wife. And trying to pick you up in a bar reminded me a bit too much of my Ollie days.”

“Were those really the lines you used to use?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.

“I’ve told you before that you wouldn’t like Ollie,” he says, raising his hand to hail a cab for them.

He pulls her close to his side when some drunk boys on the street whistle at her.

“Where did you even find this dress,” he grumbles. “You’re lucky I didn’t throw that sweater on you the second I walked into the bar and saw everyone leering at you.”

“I’ve had it for years,” she says with a shrug.

“Really,” he says, looking at her in surprise as he opens the cab door and helps her in. “I’ve never seen it.”

“That’s because I only wore it once when I was in Central City,” she says as he crawls in next to her and gives the driver their address.

“You wore that dress for Barry?” Oliver asks.

“Don’t be jealous.”

She takes his arm and places it around her shoulders and snuggles into his side. “You’re the one I had sex with tonight.”

“I’m not jealous,” he says. “I’m marveling at Barry’s stupidity at not ravaging you. He’s an idiot.”

“An idiot in love with Iris West.”

“Lucky me,” Oliver says with a laugh, placing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Thank you,” Felicity says.

“For the awesome sex?”

“For helping me see that I wasn’t really missing anything by not doing the whole college thing,” she says.

“Um… I think I’m offended,” he says. “I mean, questionable start aside, I think we ended strong.”

“No… I just mean… The sex was great. Honestly. I mean, I’ll need you to rub some lotion on my poor back when we get home, but it was totally worth it.”

“Then what?” he asks.

“I’m pretty sure it was worth it because it was you,” she says. “I hated every second that we were in that bar. I didn’t like how crowded it was or the drunk boys spilling stuff on me, and I certainly didn’t love your sleazy pickup lines.”

“Good,” he says, putting his finger under her chin to tilt her face up. “Because I didn’t like using those lines on you. You’re worth more than some cheap one-night fling at a bar.”

She smiles at that as he leans in to kiss her.

The cab arrives at their building and Oliver pays the man as she gets out of the car, snuggling into his sweater to starve off the cold. It warms her arms, but does nothing to help her legs since the sweater doesn’t reach the hem of her skirt.

“So, yes to the alley sex, but no to the role-playing?” Oliver asks once he steps out of the cab and it drives off, leaving them alone on their street.

“It’s been decided,” she says with a nod. “Though there are a few roles we can keep on the table.”

“Which ones?” he asks, unlocking the door and walking her to the elevator.

“Well CEO Oliver and EA Felicity was enjoyable,” she says, causing him to moan at the memory of them sneaking into Palmer Tech late one night in order for him to reenact a particular fantasy he’d had of taking her over his desk back when he’d been running Queen Consolidated.

“I didn’t mind wearing the Arrow suit for you,” he says, causing her to blush. She’s still a bit embarrassed about just how quickly that particular fantasy had been over. She just hadn’t been able to last long when he’d been using his Arrow voice on her.

The elevator doors open and Oliver leads her to their entrance and lets her into their loft.

“I’m not sure either of those technically qualify as role playing,” she says, walking over to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. After their heated activities in the alley, she’s parched.

“What do you mean?” he asks, grabbing the water bottle from her and taking a sip of his own.

“Well they were still us weren’t they,” she says. “A different side of ourselves, sure, but still you and me.”

“And tonight wasn’t,” he says, nodding his head.

“Not really,” she says. “We were both pretending to be something we aren’t. I think that’s why I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.”

“So no more role-playing other people,” he says.

He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her to him. “I can live with that.”

“I thought you might,” she says. “Since I’m pretty sure that’s why you couldn’t get off until I dropped the character.”

“You know me so well.”

“I should hope so,” she says. “We’ve been married for five years.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says, leaning in to give her a kiss.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Oliver.”

He reaches down to grab her and she takes the hint, jumping up to wrap her legs around his hips.

“You did agree that alley sex is still on the table though, right?” he asks. “Because I have a fantasy that combines both Arrow suit and alleyway—”

“Oh god yes,” she says, instantly feeling heat travel to her core. “Alley sex plus Arrow suit is totally on the table.”

“Speaking of on the table,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at her as he sets her down on their kitchen table.

“Why, I thought you’d never ask, Mr. Queen.”

“I did say I wanted to taste you earlier and somebody promised me I could later.”

“I guess a promise is a promise,” she says, pulling the sweater over her head and spreading her legs for him.

“You’re going to be the death of me, Felicity,” Oliver says with a smile seconds before he drops to his knees and causes her entire world to go blank.

Yes. Oliver Queen is the only man she ever wants to sleep with again. She’d been stupid to suggest otherwise, because this beautiful, wonderful, caring man? He’s the one that does things to her. He’s the one that gets her so worked up that she’s numb all over afterwards.

Oliver is the man that she loves and she doesn’t regret that for a single second. Especially not when he does that thing with his tongue. Yes, that? It’s heavenly.


End file.
